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NEW YORK AND 



aromas g. OTroixiell & Co., ne ^ st r oV 



THE 

EVERY DAY OF LIFE 



J. R. MILLER, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF " SILENT TIMES," " MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE,' 
" WEEK-DAY RELIGION," ETC. 



"Who knows 
What earth needs from earth's lowest creatures? No life 
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife 
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. 

. . . Honest love, honest sorrow, 
Honest work for the day, honest hope for the morrow — 
Are these worth nothing more than the hand they make weary? 
The heart they have saddened, the life they leave dreary? " 

Owen Meredith. 



NEW YORK: 46 East 14TH Street. 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street. 



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Copyright, 1892, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 



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DEDICATORY. 



This book is dedicated to those who want 
to grow better. If you are satisfied with your- 
self you would better not read it, for it might 
spoil your contentment. 

It is sent out with the hope that it may be 
helpful to some, first in showing glimpses of 
better things, and then in leading toward them. 
It is written for people who have common human 
experiences, in the heart of the world's toil and 
care ; one who is a fellow-pilgrim with like ex- 
periences would lend a brother's hand. 

Perhaps a discouraged one may take heart 
again after reading some of these simple chap- 
ters ; or one who has not thought seriously of 
life may grow a little more earnest ; or one who 
has fallen by the way may rise and face toward 
the light and begin to live victoriously; or a 
fainting robin may be helped back into the nest 
again. That will be blessing enough. 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Every-Day of Life i 

II. Our Debt to the Past 15 

III. The Beatitude for the Unsuccessful . . 28 

IV. The Blessing of Quietness 41 

V. On Being a Discourager . . . , . . 53 

VI. Making Life a Song ........ 65 

VII. Life-Music in Chorus . . 77 

VIII. Loving the Unseen Friend 88 

IX. The Secret of Peace 99 

X. In Time of Loneliness 112 

XI. The Blessedness of Not Knowing. . . .124 

XII. Words about Consecration ... . . . .139 

XIII. The Duty of Speaking Out 156 

XIV. Learning by Doing 171 

XV. The Benediction of Patience . . . . .186 

XVI. Hurting the Lives of Others 198 

XVII. The Cost of Being a Friend 207 

XVIII. Our Unsuspected Perils 221 

XIX. The Bearing of our Burden 234 

XX. The Influence of Companionship .... 246 

XXL "As it is in Heaven" 258 

XXII. The Ending of the Day 271 



THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

u Place a spray in thy belt, or a rose on thy stand, 
When thou settest thyself to a commonplace seam ; 
Its beauty will brighten the work in thy hand, 
Its fragrance will sweeten each dream. 

When the task thou performest is irksome and long, 
Or thy brain is perplexed by doubt or by fear, 

Fling open the window and let in the song 
God hath taught to the birds for thy cheer." 

Perhaps the every-day of life is not so inter- 
esting as are some of the bright particular days. 
It is apt to be somewhat monotonous. It is 
just like a great many other days. It has noth- 
ing special to mark it. It wears no star on its 
brow. It is illumined by no brilliant event. It 
bears no record of any brave or noble deed 
done. It is not made memorable by the com- 



2 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

ing of any new experience into the life, — a new 
hope, a new friendship, a new joy, a new suc- 
cess. It is not even touched with sorrow, and 
made to stand out ever after among the days 
sad with the memory of loss. It is only a plain, 
common day, with just the same old wearisome 
routine of tasks and duties and happenings that 
have come so often before. 

Yet it is the every-day that is really the best 
measure and test of life. Anybody can do well 
on special occasions. Anybody can be good on 
Sundays. Anybody can be bright and cheerful 
in exhilarating society. Anybody can be sweet 
amid gentle influences. Anybody can make a 
solitary self-denial for some conspicuous object, 
or do a generous deed under the impulse of 
some unusual emotion. Anybody can do a 
heroic thing once or twice in a lifetime. 

These are beautiful things. They shine like 
lofty peaks above life's plains. But the ordi- 
nary attainment of the common days is a truer 
index of the life, a truer measure of its char- 
acter and value, than are the most striking and 
brilliant things of its exalted moments. It re- 



THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 3 

quires more strength to be faithful in the ninety 
and nine commonplace duties, when no one is 
looking on, when there is no special motive to 
stir the soul to its best effort, than it does in 
the one duty, which by its unusual importance, 
or by its conspicuousness, arouses enthusiasm 
for its own doing. It is a great deal easier to 
be brave in one stern conflict which calls for 
heroism, in which large interests are involved, 
than to be brave in the thousand little struggles 
of the common days, for which it seems scarcely 
worth while to put on the armor. It is very 
much less a task to be good-natured under one 
great provocation, in the presence of others, 
than it is to keep sweet temper month after 
month of ordinary days, amid the frictions, 
strifes, and petty annoyances and cares of 
home-life, or of business life. 

Thus it is that one's every-day life is a surer 
revealer of character than one's public acts. 
There are men who are magnificent when they 
appear on great occasions, — wise, eloquent, 
masterly, — but who are almost utterly unen- 
durable in their fretfulness, unreasonableness, 



4 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

irascibility, and all manner of selfish disagree- 
ableness in the privacy of their own homes, to 
those to whom they ought to show all of love's 
gentleness and sweetness. There are women, 
too, who shine with wondrous brilliancy in 
society, sparkling in conversation, winning in 
manner, the centre ever of admiring groups, 
resistless in their charms, but who, in their 
every-day life, in the presence of only their own 
households, are the dullest and wearisomest of 
mortals. No doubt in these cases the common 
every-day, unflattering as it is, is a truer expres- 
sion of the inner life than the hour or two 
of greatness or graciousness in the blaze of 
publicity. 

On the other hand, there are men who are 
never heard of on the street, whose names 
never appear in the newspapers, who do no 
conspicuous things, whose lives have no glitter- 
ing peaks towering high, and yet the level 
plain of their years is rich in its beauty and its 
fruitfulness of love. There are women who do 
not shine in society, who are the idols of no 
drawing-rooms, who attract no throngs of ad- 



THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 5 

mirers about them by resistless charms, but who, 
in their own quiet sheltered world, do their daily 
tasks with faithfulness, move in ways of lowly 
duty and unselfish serving with sweet patience 
and quiet cheerfulness, and pour out their 
heart's pure love, like fragrance, on all about 
them. Who will say that the uneventful and 
unpraised every-day of these lowly ones is not 
radiant in heaven's sight, though they 

" Leave no memorial but a world made 
A little better by their lives " ? 

It is in the every-day of life that nearly all 
the world's best work is done. The tall moun- 
tain peaks lift their glittering crests into the 
clouds, and win attention and admiration ; but 
it is in the great valleys and broad plains that 
the harvests grow and the fruits ripen, on which 
the millions of earth feed their hunger. So it 
is not from the few conspicuous deeds of life 
that the blessings chiefly come which make the 
world better, sweeter, happier; but from the 
countless lowly ministries of the every-days, 
the little faithfulnesses that fill long years. 



6 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

" ' What shall I do to be forever known ? ' 

' Thy duty ever.* 1 
* This did full many who yet sleep unknown.' 

4 Oh, never, never ! 
Thinkest thou perchance that they remain unknown 

Whom thou know'st not ? 
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, 

Divine their lot. 7 " 

A tender and beautiful story of lowly faith- 
fulness is told by a late writer. It was on one 
of the Orkney Islands where a great rock — 
Lonely Rock — dangerous to vessels, juts out 
into the sea. In a fisherman's hut on this 
island coast, one night long ago, sat a young 
girl, busy at her spinning-wheel, looking out 
upon the dark and driving clouds. All night 
she toiled and watched, and when morning 
came, one fishing-boat, her father's, was miss- 
ing. Half a mile from the cottage her father's 
body was found, washed upon the shore. His 
boat had been wrecked on Lonely Rock. 

The girl watched her father's body after the 
manner of her people, till it was laid in the 
grave. Then when night came she arose and 
set the candle in her casement, that the fisher- 



THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. J 

men out on the waves might see. All night 
long she sat in the little room spinning, trim- 
ming the candle when its light grew dim. 
After that, in the wild storms of winter, in the 
quiet calm of summer, through driving mists, 
illusive moonlight, and solemn darkness, that 
coast was never one night without the light 
of that one little candle. As many hanks of 
yarn as she had spun before for her daily 
bread she spun still, and one more, to pay for 
her nightly candle. The men on the sea, how- 
ever far out they had gone, were sure always of 
seeing that quiet light shining to give them safe 
guidance. Who can tell how many hearts were 
cheered and lives saved from peril and death by 
that tiny flame which love and devotion and 
self-sacrifice kept there through the long years ? 
This is but a leaf out of the story of 
millions of faithful lives that yet go unpraised 
among men. The things they do are not the 
same in all, but the spirit is the same. These 
humble ones keep the light of love burning 
where it guides and cheers and blesses others. 
By the simple beauty of their own lives, by 



8 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

their quiet deeds of self-sacrifice, by the songs 
of their cheerful faith, and by the ministries 
of their helpful hands, they make one little 
spot of this sad earth brighter and happier. 

Lowell's picture of womanly grace and 
faithfulness is very beautiful, and illustrates 
the glory of the commonplace : — 

" She doeth little kindnesses 

Which most leave undone or despise ; 
For naught that sets our heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace, 
Is low esteemed in her eyes. 

She hath no scorn of common things, 
And though she seems of other birth, 

Round us her heart entwines and clings, 

And patiently she folds her wings 
To tread the humble paths of earth. 

Blessing she is. God made her so. 

And deeds of week-day holiness 
Fall from her noiseless as the snow ; 
Nor hath she ever chanced to know 

That aught were easier than to bless." 

We could lose out of this world's life many 
of its few brilliant deeds and not be much the 
poorer, but to lose the uncounted faithful- 



THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 9 

nesses of the millions of common lives would 
leave this world a cold and dreary place indeed 
in which to live. 

There ought to be both cheer and instruc- 
tion in these glimpses of the glory and blessing 
of the every-day of life. Most of us can 
expect to do only plain and commonplace 
things. Only a few people can become famous. 
Only a rare deed now and then can have its 
honor proclaimed from the hilltops. Only a 
day or two in a lifetime, at the most, can be 
brightened by the light of popular praise. It 
is a comfort to reflect that it is the common 
life of the every-day that in God's sight is the 
truest and best, and that does the most to bless 
the world. Many of us need the inspiration 
which comes from this revealing. The glamour 
of the conspicuous is apt to deceive us. There 
is so much glorifying of the unusual and the 
phenomenal in life, that we come to think the 
common as of but small importance. People 
whose days are all alike in their dull routine, 
feel that their life is scarcely worth living. If 
only they could do something startling or sub- 



IO THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

lime, or even sensational, to lift them out of 
the dreary commonplace of their every-days, 
they would feel that they were living nobly and 
worthily. But if they could realize that it is 
by its moral value that life's worth is measured, 
they would know that ordinarily there is ten 
times more true glory in long unbroken years 
of simple faithfulness, without distinction or 
conspicuousness at any point, than there is in 
any unusual brilliancy in an occasional day or 
hour. 

The every-day of God's care and revealing is 
also more to us than his day of wonder-working. 
The miracles of Christ were not half so rich in 
blessing for men as his common days with their 
sweet life, their simple teachings, their cease- 
less ministries of good, their compassion, their 
thoughtf ulness, comfort, and helpfulness. Daily 
providence, with its unrecognized wonders of 
sunshine and air and rain and snow and heat 
and cold, and its unfailing gifts of food and rai- 
ment and beauty and comfort, is more glorious 
than the occasional startling events that seem 
to unveil the very throne of God. 



THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. II 

Luther wrote one day in a dark period of 
the Reformation, when even the boldest were 
trembling : " I recently saw two miracles. 
You listen to hear of something startling, some 
great light burning in the heavens, some 
angelic visitation, some unusual occurrence ; 
but you hear only this : ' As I was at my win- 
dow, I saw the stars, the sky, and that vast and 
glorious firmament in which the Lord has 
placed them. I could nowhere discover the 
columns on which the Master has supported 
this immense vault, and yet the heavens did 
not fall/ And here was the other miracle : ' I 
beheld clouds hanging above me like a vast sea. 
I could neither perceive ground on which they 
reposed, nor cords by which they were sus- 
pended, and yet they did not fall upon me/ ' 

If we had eyes to see the glory of the Lord 
in the every-day of divine providence, we should 
find light and comfort a thousand times where 
now we walk in darkness with sorrow uncom- 
forted. The glory of the Lord is everywhere. 
It shines in the lowliest flower, in the common- 
est grass-blade, in every drop of dew, in every 



12 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

snowflake. It burns in every bush and tree. 
It lives in every sunbeam, in every passing 
cloud. It flows around us in the- goodness of 
each bright day, in the shelter and protection 
of every dark night. Yet how few of us see 
this glory. We walk amid the divine splendors, 
and see ofttimes nothing of the brightness. 
Says Mrs. Browning: — 

" Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God ; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes ; 
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries." 

We cry out for visions of God, when, if our 
eyes were opened, we should see God's face 
mirrored in all about us. There is a legend of 
one who travelled many years and over many 
lands, seeking God, but seeking in vain. Then, 
returning home, and taking up her daily duties, 
God appeared to her in these, showing her that 
he was ever close beside her. Whittier, in a 
beautiful poem, "The Chapel of the Hermits," 
represents one seeking the Holy Land, and at 
last learning that he needed not rock nor sand 



THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE, 1 3 

nor storied stream of morning-land, to reveal 
Christ : — 

" The heavens are glassed in Merrimac ; 
What more could Jordan render back ? 

We lack but open eye and ear 
To find the Orient's marvels here ; 
The still, small voice in autumn's hush, 
Yon maple wood the burning bush. 

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier shore ; 
God's love and blessing, then and there, 
Are now and here and everywhere."' 

So there is glory everywhere in life, if only 
we have eyes to see it. The humblest lot 
affords room enough for the noblest living. 
There is opportunity in the most commonplace 
life for splendid heroisms, for higher than an- 
gelic ministries, for fullest and clearest reveal- 
ings of God. " Every day," says Goethe, " is 
a vessel into which a great deal may be poured, 
if we will actually fill it up ; that is, with 
thoughts and feelings, and their expression into 
deeds as elevated and amiable as we can reach 
to." The days are well enough : it is with our- 



14 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

selves whether we make them radiant and beau- 
tiful, whether we fill them with life. A mere 
dreary treadmill round — waking, eating, drink- 
ing, walking, working, sleeping — is not enough 
to make any life worthy ; we must put the glory 
of love, of best effort, of sacrifice, of prayer, 
of upward-looking, and heavenward-reaching, 
into the dull routine of our life's every-day, and 
then the most burdensome and uneventful life 
will be made splendid with the glory of God. 



CHAPTER II. 

OUR DEBT TO THE PAST. 

" We see by the light of thousands of years, 

And the knowledge of millions of men ; 
The lessons they learned through blood and in tears 

Are ours for the reading, and then 
We sneer at their errors and follies and dreams, 

Their frail idols of mind and of stone, 
And call ourselves wiser, forgetting, it seems, 

That the future may laugh at our own." 

Nearly all the precious things of our lives 
are made sacred to us by their cost. This is 
true even of material things. We cannot live 
a day but something must die to become food 
for the sustaining of our life. We cannot be 
warmed in winter but some miner must crouch 
and toil in the deep darkness, to dig out the 
fuel for our fires. We cannot be clothed but 
worms must weave their own lives into threads 
of silk, or sheep must shiver in the chill air, 
that we may have their fleeces to cover us. 

15 



1 6 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

The gems and jewels which the women wear, 
and which they prize so highly as ornaments, 
are brought to them through the anguish and 
the peril of the poor wretches who hunt or 
dive for them in cruel seas. The furs we wrap 
about us in the winter cost the lives of the 
creatures which first wore them, which have to 
die to yield the warmth and comfort for us. 
Think, too, of the sweet song-birds that must 
be captured and cruelly slaughtered to get 
wings and feathers for the women's hats. 
Every comfort or luxury that we enjoy comes 
to us at the price of weariness and pain, some- 
times of anguish and tears, in those who pro- 
cure and prepare it for us. 

In the higher spheres the same is true. 
The books we read, and whose pages give us 
so much pleasure and profit, are prepared for 
us, ofttimes, at sore cost to their authors. 
The great thoughts that warm our hearts and 
inspire us to noble living, are the fruit, many 
times, of pain and struggle. " Wherever a 
great thought is born," says some one, " there 
has been a Gethsemane." Men had to pass 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST Ij 

through darkness and doubt to learn the les- 
sons of faith and hope which they have written 
in such fair lines for us. They had to endure 
temptations, and fight battles in which they 
well-nigh perished, that they might set down 
for us their bright inspiring story of victory and 
triumph. They had to meet sorrows in which 
their hearts were almost broken, to learn how 
to write the strong words of comfort which so 
strengthen us as we read them in our times of 
grief. We do not know what some of the glad 
hymns of faith and hope, which lift up our 
hearts as on eagles' wings, cost those who first 
sang them. They have learned in suffering 
what they teach in song. 

You read a book that helps you. Its words 
seem to throb with life. You are in sorrow, 
and it comforts you. You are. in darkness, and 
its lines appear to be luminous for you with an 
inner light. You feel that he who wrote the 
book has somehow understood your very expe- 
riences, and, like a most skilful physician, has 
brought to you just the healing your heart 
needs. But you do not know the pain, the 



1 8 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

anguish, the suffering, the struggle, the dark- 
ness, through which he had to pass before he 
could write these living words. 

In one of his epistles St. Paul tells us that 
all things are ours, whether Paul or Apollos 
or Peter, or the world, or life or death. That 
is, we are the inheritors of the fruits of all 
good lives in all past centuries. Every past 
age has contributed to the wealth we now have. 
David's songs are ours, and so are Paul's epis- 
tles, and Peter's sermons and letters and les- 
sons of failure and restoration. " If there is 
anything good or true or beautiful in us, the 
saints and the poets and the sages have entered 
into our lives, and have helped to develop those 
qualities in us." We exult in our civilization, 
our advancement, our refinement, our knowl- 
edge, our culture, our arts, our wonderful in- 
ventions, our Christian society, the many 
pleasant things of our modern life. Do we 
remember that all this comes to us from the 
toils and tears and sacrifices, the study, the 
thought, the invention, the sweat, and the pain 
of thousands who have gone before us ? There 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST. 1 9 

has not been a true life lived anywhere in the 
past, however lowly, that has not contributed 
in some degree to the good and blessing we 
now enjoy. George Eliot says, "The growing 
good of the world is partly dependent on unhis- 
toric facts ; and that things are not so ill with 
you and me as they might have been, is half 
owing to the number who have lived faithfully 
a hidden life, and rest now in unvisited tombs." 
Not a leaf has ever fluttered down into the 
dust and perished there, but has helped to 
enrich the earth's soil ; and not a lowly life in 
all the past has been lived purely and nobly, but 
the world to-day is a little richer and better for it. 
Look at our home life. We should not for- 
get that, though they are ours without price, 
the good things of our homes have not been 
without cost to those to whose love we are in- 
debted for them. We have but to think of the 
untiring affection that sheltered our infancy, 
and guided our feet in our tender years, and of 
the self-denials and sacrifices, the toils and 
watchings, the care and anxiety, the loss of 
rest, the broken nights, the planning, the pray- 



20 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

ing, the weeping, and all the cost of love, — for 
love always costs, — along the days of child- 
hood and youth. Thus ofttimes much of the 
good in our homes has come down from the 
past, — the fruit of the labor and suffering of a 
long line of ancestors. Hence every comfort 
and joy and beauty should be sacred as a sacra- 
ment to us, because it has been gotten for us 
by hands of love, at cost of toil and saving, 
pinching economy and self-denial. 

Daniel Webster, referring to the early home 
of his parents in a log cabin, built amid the 
snow-drifts of New Hampshire, "at a period so 
early that, when the smoke rose first from its 
rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, 
there was no similar evidence of a white man's 
habitation between it and the settlements on 
the rivers of Canada," uttered these noble 
words concerning this rude cabin, " Its remains 
still exist. I make it an annual visit. I carry 
my children to it, to teach them the hardships 
endured by the generations which have gone 
before them. I love to dwell on the tender 
recollections, the kindred ties, the early affec- 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST. 21 

tions, and the touching narratives and inci- 
dents which mingle with all that I know of the 
primitive family abode. I weep to think that 
none of those who inhabited it are now among 
the living ; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or 
if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him 
who reared it, and defended it against savage 
violence and destruction, cherished all the 
domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through 
the fire and blood of a seven years' Revolu- 
tionary War, shrank from no danger, no toil, 
no sacrifice, to save his country, and to raise 
his children to a condition better than his own, 
may my name, and the names of my posterity, be 
blotted forever from the memory of mankind/' 
Or we may think of our country. We enjoy 
its liberties and prosperities. We look at our 
beautiful flag, and our hearts are filled with 
patriotic pride. We sit in peace beneath its 
sheltering folds. We think of our institutions, 
our beneficent government, our civilization, our 
schools, our churches, the peace and safety we 
enjoy. But we should not forget what all 
these national blessings cost those who pro- 



22 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

cured them, and those who have preserved 
them for us. Our present Christian civilization 
is the growth of many centuries of fidelity, 
of sacrifice, of blood. The story of the strug- 
gle for human freedom is a story of tears and 
suffering and martyrdom. Every school-boy 
knows what it cost the colonists to lay the 
foundations of our nation ; how bravely they 
fought, how they suffered in maintaining the 
principles which enter into the Constitution, 
and are the basis of all that is noble in our 
country. Every thread of our flag represents a 
precious cost in loyalty to the truth, and to the 
cause of human rights. Our Civil War is not 
yet too distant for many of us to remember 
the price that was paid in those dark, sad days 
on battlefields and in prisons by brave men, to 
preserve the liberty that is so dear to us, and 
to wipe out the shame of human slavery that, 
till then, had still blotted our escutcheon. 
Thus everything that is noble and good in our 
country comes to us from sacrifice and blood, 
somewhere along the past centuries, and should 
be sacred to every loyal, patriotic heart. 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST. 23 

There is one other obvious application of this 
principle of the cost of all blessings. We have 
great joy in our Christian hopes. We are 
freed from sin's curse. We are children of 
God. We have Christ's peace in our hearts. 
We walk beneath the smile of God. We have 
comfort in our sorrow, guidance in our per- 
plexities, help in temptation, the assurance of 
eternal life. We should never forget that all 
these priceless blessings, which yet are so free 
to us, come to us through the cross and passion 
of our Saviour. By his stripes we are healed. 
We have joy because he endured sorrow. We 
have peace in the midst of storm, because he 
faced the storm. We have forgiveness, because 
the darkness gathered about his soul on the 
cross. The hands that save us are pierced 
hands, pierced in saving us. 

" I fall not on my knees and pray, 
But God must come from heaven to fetch that sigh, 
And pierced hands must take it back on high ; 
And through his broken heart and cloven side 

Love makes an open way 
For me, who could not live, but that He died." 



24 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

These are illustrations of this great law of 
the cost of all that is good. Past ages have 
sent down to us their fruits of pain and 
sacrifice and loss to enrich us. Our inherit- 
ances, others toiled to get them for us. The 
blessings of our homes and firesides come to 
us baptized with love's tears and blood. Every- 
thing that is beautiful in life has cost, some- 
where, anguish and pain. Heaven is entered 
only by the way of the cross of Christ. 

What is the lesson ? When three brave men 
brought to David, shut up in a cave, water 
from the well that was by the gate of Bethle- 
hem, cutting through the lines of the Philis- 
tines to get it for him, he would not drink it, 
but poured it out unto the Lord. " Be it far 
from me, O Lord," he said, " that I should do 
this ! Shall I drink the blood of the men that 
went in jeopardy of their lives?" Its cost 
made the water too sacred to be used even for 
the gratification of his own natural thirst. It 
could be fitly used in no way but as an offer- 
ing to the Lord. 

If that cup of water was so sacred because 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST, 25 

brought by hands of love through peril, what 
shall we say of the blessings of our lives which 
have cost others so much ? Are they not 
all sacred ? This is one lesson. Nothing is 
common or unclean. Everything has been 
cleansed by its cost. How this thought trans- 
figures all life, all our possessions and enjoy- 
ments ! 

Then a further lesson is, that these sacred 
things must not be used for common ends, for 
any mere selfish gratification. We should con- 
secrate them to God. But how can we do 
this ? For one thing, we should never put 
anything of ours to any sinful or unholy use. 
We cherish heirlooms, mementoes, and memo- 
rials of friends who are gone. We hold them 
as sacred as life itself. We would not for the 
world desecrate a keepsake. A poor woman 
told the other day, how her husband had taken 
her ring, her dead mother's gift to her, and 
had pawned it to get a little money to buy 
drink. No wonder her heart was almost broken 
by his act. When we think of it, all the bless- 
ings of our lives are sacred memorials of love, 



26 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

because they represent the toil and sacrifice of 
those who have gone before us. To use even 
the commonest of them in any sinful way is to 
desecrate hallowed things. 

Even to use our blessings solely for our- 
selves is also to dishonor them. David would 
not even quench his own sore thirst with the 
water which had cost so much. It is sacrilege 
to use our good things for ourselves alone. 
We employ them worthily only when we share 
them with others. This is the true way of 
giving them to God. This is what he wants 
us to do with them. We lay them on his 
altar, but they are not burned up there, as were 
the ancient offerings. God gives them back to 
us, that we may take them, and with them bless 
other lives. 

If we would join the ranks of those who 
have lived worthily in the past, and have be- 
queathed blessing to the world, we must live 
worthily ourselves, must live unto God, stand- 
ing faithfully in our lot, loyal to truth and to 
duty, withholding no price of love in serving 
others. And this obligation to the future, our 



OUR DEBT TO THE PAST. 2/ 

own debt to the past lays upon us. Other 
men labored, suffered, and we have entered 
into their labors and sufferings. As we enjoy 
the fruits of the love and service and faithful- 
ness of those who have gone before us, let us 
pay our debt to them by love and service and 
faithfulness that will bless those who come 
after us. Woe to the man who leaves a curse 
in the world instead of a blessing. 

" O awful, sweetest Life of mine, 
That God and man both serve in blood and tears ! 
O prayers I breathe not but through other prayers ! 
O breath of life compact of others 1 sighs ! 

With this dread gift divine, 
Ah, whither go? — what worthily devise? 

If on myself I dare to spend 
This dreadful thing, in pleasure lapped and reared, 
What am I but a hideous idol smeared 
With human blood, that with its carrion smile, 

Alike to foe and friend, 
Maddens the wretch who perishes the while? 

I will away and find my God, 
And what I dare not keep ask him to take, 
And taking, love's sweet sacrifice to make ; 
Then, like a wave, the sorrow and the pain 

High heaven with glory flood — 
For them, for me, for all, a splendid gain." 



CHAPTER III. 

THE BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 

"I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life — 
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the 
strife. 

The hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart, 

Who strove and who failed." 

— IV. W. Story. 

There may be no Bible beatitude saying 
expressly, " Blessed are the unsuccessful/' but 
there are beatitudes which are equivalent to 
this. We take from our Lord's own lips, 
" Blessed are they that mourn," " Blessed be 
ye poor," " Blessed are they which are perse- 
cuted," " Blessed are ye when men shall revile 
you," " Blessed are ye when men shall hate 
you." Then many other Scripture passages 
have like teaching. Evidently not all bless- 
ings lie in the sunshine ; many of them hide 
in the shadows. We do not read far in the 
Bible, especially in the New Testament, with- 

28 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 29 

out finding that earthly prosperity is not the 
highest good that God has for men. Our Lord 
speaks very plainly about the perils of worldly 
success. 

The Bible is indeed a book for the unsuc- 
cessful. Its sweetest messages are to those 
who have fallen. It is a book of love and 
sympathy. It is like a mothers bosom to lay 
one's head upon in the time of distress or pain. 
Its pages teem with cheer for those who are 
discouraged. It sets its lamps of hope to 
shine in darkened chambers. It reaches out its 
hands of help to the fainting and to those who 
have fallen. It is full of comfort for those who 
are in sorrow. It has its many special promises 
for the needy, the poor, the bereft. It is a 
book for those who have failed, for the disap- 
pointed, the defeated, the discouraged. 

It is this quality in the Bible that makes it 
so dear to the heart of humanity. If it were 
a book only for the strong, the successful, the 
victorious, the unfallen, those who have no 
sorrow, who never fail, — the whole, the happy, 
— it would not find such a welcome wherever 



3<D THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

it goes in this world. So long as there are 
tears and sorrows, and broken hearts, and 
crushed hopes, and human failures, and lives 
burdened and bowed down, and spirits sad and 
despairing, so long will the Bible be a book 
believed in as of God — an inspired book, and 
full of inspiration, light, help, and strength for 
earth's weary ones. 

The God of the Bible is the God of those 
who have not succeeded. Wherever there is a 
weak, stumbling one, unable to walk alone, to 
him the divine heart goes out in tender thought 
and sympathy, and the divine hand is extended 
to support him, and keep him from falling. 
Wherever one has fallen, and lies in defeat or 
failure, over him bends the heavenly Father in 
kindly pity, to raise him up and to help him to 
begin again. 

Some people think that the old Mosaic law is 
cold, loveless ; but as we look through it, we 
find many a word that tells of the gentle heart 
of God. Every seventh year the people were 
to let their farms rest, that the poor might eat 
the fruits that grew upon them. They were 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 3 1 

taught to be mindful of the needy in every 
harvest-time. They were not to reap too 
closely the corners of their fields, nor glean 
their vineyards too carefully, picking off every 
grape. They were to leave something for the 
poor and the stranger. Thus the needy were 
God's special and particular care. 

In Eastern lands the widow and the orphan 
are peculiarly desolate and defenceless. But 
God declares himself their particular helper 
and defender. In the midst of dreary chap- 
ters of laws, we come upon this gleam of 
divine gentleness. " Ye shall not afflict any 
widow or fatherless child. If thou afflict them 
in any wise, and they cry at all to me, I will 
surely hear their cry ; and my wrath shall wax 
hot." Sheaves were to be left in the field, 
olives on the tree, grapes on the vine, for the 
fatherless and the widow. The God of the 
Bible has a partiality of kindness for those 
who have lost the human guardians of their 
feebleness. 

Wherever there is weakness in any one, the 
strength of God is especially revealed. " The 



32 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Lord preserveth the simple." The simple are 
those who are innocent and childlike, without 
skill or cunning to care for themselves, those 
who are unsuspecting and trustful, who are not 
armed by their own wisdom and art against 
the wiles of cruel men. The Lord takes care 
of these, defends them, keeps and guards them. 
Indeed, the safest people in this world are 
those who have no power to take care of them- 
selves. Their very def encelessness is their best 
protection. 

There is a Turkish proverb which says, 
"The nest of the blind bird is built by God." 
Have you ever seen a blind child in a home ? 
How helpless it is ! It is at the mercy of any 
cruelty which an evil heart may inspire. It is 
an open prey to all dangers. It cannot take 
care of itself. Yet how lovingly and safely it 
is sheltered ! The mother's love seems ten- 
derer for the blind child than for any of her 
other children. The father's thought is not so 
gentle for any of the strong ones as for this 
helpless one. As one says, " Those sealed 
eyes, those tottering feet, those outstretched 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 33 

hands, have a power to move those parents to 
labor and care and sacrifice, such as the strong- 
est and most beautiful of the household does 
not possess." This picture gives us a hint of 
the special, watchful care of God for his weak 
children. Their very helplessness is their 
strongest plea to the divine heart. The God 
of the Bible is the God of the weak, the 
unsheltered. He sends his strongest angels 
to guard them. The children's angels, the 
keepers of the little ones, the weak ones, the 
simple, appear always as heaven's privileged 
ones before God. 

The God of the Bible is the God also of the 
broken-hearted. There are divine words which 
tell us that " The Lord is nigh unto them that 
are of a broken heart," that " He healeth the 
broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds." 
The world cares little for broken hearts. 
Indeed, men ofttimes break hearts by their 
cruelty, their falseness, their injustice, their 
coldness, and then move on as heedlessly as if 
they had trodden only on a worm. But God 
cares. The broken-hearteclness attracts him. 



34 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

The plaint of grief on earth draws him down 
from heaven. 

Physicians in their rounds do not stop at the 
homes of the well, but of the sick. Surgeons 
on the field of battle do not pay attention to 
the unhurt, the unwounded ; they bend over 
those who have been torn by shot or shell, or 
pierced by sword or sabre. So it is with God 
in his movements through this world ; it is not 
to the whole and well, but to the wounded and 
stricken, that he comes with sweetest tender- 
ness. Jesus said of his mission : " He hath 
sent me to bind up the broken-hearted. " We 
look upon trouble as misfortune. We say the 
life is being destroyed that is passing through 
adversity. But the truth we find in the Bible 
does not so represent suffering. God is a 
repairer and restorer of the hurt and ruined 
life. He takes the reed that is bruised and by 
his gentle skill makes it whole again, until it 
grows into fairest beauty. When a branch of 
a tree is injured, the whole tree begins at once 
to send of its life to the wounded part to 
restore it. When a violet is crushed by a 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 35 

passing foot, air and sun and cloud and dew 
all at once begin their ministry of healing, 
giving of their life to bind up the wound of 
the little flower. So Heaven does with human 
hearts when they are wounded. The love, pity, 
and grace of God minister sweet blessing of 
comfort and healing to restore that which is 
broken. 

Much of the most beautiful life in this world 
comes out of sorrow. As "fair flowers bloom 
upon rough stalks/' so many of the fairest 
flowers of human life grow upon the rough 
stalk of suffering. We take our place with the 
beloved disciple on the other side, and we see 
that those who in heaven wear the whitest 
robes, and sing the loudest songs of victory, 
are they who have come out of great tribula- 
tion. Heaven's highest places are filling, not 
from earth's homes of glad festivity and tear- 
less joy, but from its chambers of pain, its 
vales of struggle where the battle is hard, and 
its scenes of sorrow, where pale cheeks are wet 
with tears, and where hearts are broken. The 
God of the Bible is the God of the bowed 



36 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

down, whom he lifts up into strength. Earth's 
failures are not failures if God be in them. 

The same is true of spiritual life. God is 
the God of those who fail. Not that he loves 
those that stumble and fall better than those 
who walk erect without stumbling ; but he 
helps them more. The weak ones who believe 
in Christ get more of his grace than those who 
are strong. There is a special divine promise 
which says, " My power is made perfect in 
weakness." That is, we are not weakest when 
we think ourselves weakest, nor are we strong- 
est when we think ourselves strong. God's 
power is made perfect in weakness. Human 
consciousness of weakness gives God room to 
work. He cannot work with our strength, 
because in our self-conceit we make no room 
for him. Before he can put his strength into 
us, we must confess that we have no strength 
of our own. When we are conscious of our 
own insufficiency, we are ready to receive of 
the divine sufficiency. Thus our very weak- 
ness is an element of strength. Weakness is 
an empty cup that God fills with his own life. 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 37 

You think your weakness unfits you for noble, 
strong, beautiful living, or for sweet, gentle, 
helpful serving. You wish you could get clear 
of it. It seems a burden to you, an ugly de- 
formity. But really it is something which if 
you give it to Christ he can transform into a 
blessing, a source of power. The friend by 
your side, whom you envy because he seems 
so much stronger than you are, does not get 
so much of Christ's strength as you do. You 
alone are weaker than he ; but your weakness 
draws to you divine power, and makes you 
strong. 

There should be unspeakable comfort and 
inspiration for us in this truth. For example, 
we have not been successful in life. We have 
tried hard but have not gotten on. This is the 
way it seems, at least on the earth side. But 
if, meanwhile, we have been true to God, and 
faithful in duty, there has been an unfailing 
inner prosperity which men do not see. This 
world's affairs are but the scaffolding of our 
real life, and within the rough exterior of 
earthly failure there has risen continually the 
noble building of a godly character. 



38 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

A little story poem tells of an eager throng 
of youth setting out in a race. One among 
them excelled all the others in courage, 
strength, and grace, and gave early promise of 
winning. The way was long and hard, and the 
goal far away, but still this favorite held his 
place in the lead. 

" But ah, what folly ! see, he stops 

To raise a fallen child, 
To place it out of danger's way, 

With kiss and warning mild. 
A fainting comrade claims his care, — 

Once more he turns aside ; 
Then stays his strong young steps to be 

A feeble woman's guide. 

And so, wherever duty calls, 

Or sorrow, or distress, 
He leaves his chosen path, to aid, 

To comfort, and to bless." 

So at last when the race is over and the 
victors are crowned, some with fame's laurels, 
some with love's flowers, some with gold cir- 
clets on their brows, all unknown, unheeded, 
with empty hands and uncrowned head, stands 



BEATITUDE FOR THE UNSUCCESSFUL. 39 

this, the real winner of the race. Earth had 
no crown for him, but on his face shines 
heaven's serene and holy light. 

This tells the story of thousands of earth's 
failures. Those who might have won highest 
honors among men, turn aside from their ambi- 
tions to do God's work in the world. They 
stop to bless others, to comfort sorrows, to 
cheer loneliness, to lift up fallen ones, to help 
the weak. In the race with the world's men 
they lose, but in God's sight they are the real 
winners. Angels applaud them, and Christ 
will reward and crown them. 

The world has honor enough for those who 
succeed. There are plenty of books about 
men and women who became famous. There 
is glory for those who began among the ranks 
of the poor and climbed upward to the highest 
places. There are poets enough to sing the 
story of those who win in the battle. But the 
Bible wreaths its laurel chaplets for the unsuc- 
cessful. It sings the songs of those who fail. 
Its hand of help is under the fallen. Its bright- 
est crowns are for those whom earth passes by. 



40 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

When the end comes, and life's revelations are 
all made, then it will appear that many who in 
this world have been thrust aside, or trampled 
down in the dust, or even burned at the stake, 
or nailed on crosses, have been exalted to 
highest honor in the life beyond earth. 

We would better, therefore, learn to measure 
life by true standards. No one has really 
failed who has lived for God, who has lived 
according to God's law, who has wrought on 
the temple of truth, in the cause of righteous- 
ness. 

"Speak, history! Who are life's victors? Unroll thy 

long annals and say — 
Are they those whom the world calls the victors, who 

won the success of a day ? 
The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans who fell at 

Thermopylae's tryst, 
Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? 

Pilate, or Christ?" 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BLESSING OP QUIETNESS. 

" Just when we think we've fixed the golden mean — 
The diamond point, on which to balance fair 
Life, and life's lofty issues — weighing there, 
With fractional precision, close and keen, 
Thought, motive, word, and deed, there comes between 
Some wayward circumstance, some jostling care, 
Some temper's fret, some mood's unwise despair, 
To mar the equilibrium, unforeseen, 

And spoil our nice adjustment ! Happy he 
Whose soul's calm equipoise can know no jar, 
Because the unwavering hand that holds the scales 
Is the same hand that weighed each steadfast star — 

Is the same hand that on the sacred tree 
Bore for his sake the anguish of the nails." 

Margaret J. Preston. 

It would seem that anybody could keep still 
and quiet. It requires no exertion, we would 
say. Work is hard, but it ought to be easy to 
rest. It takes effort to speak ; it ought to be 
easy just to be silent. 

But we all know that few things are harder 
41 



42 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

for most people than to be still. Our lives are 
like the ocean in their restlessness. This is one 
of the proofs of our immortality. We are too 
great to be quiet. A stone has no trouble in 
keeping still. A clam never gets nervous. 
The human soul was made for God, and its very 
grandeur renders its repose and quiet amid the 
things of earth the most difficult of all attain- 
ments. 

Yet quietness is a lesson that is set for us 
with great frequency in the Bible. We are 
told that the effect of righteousness is quiet- 
ness. The Shepherd leads his sheep by the 
still waters. We are told to study to be quiet, 
to be ambitious to be quiet, as a marginal read- 
ing gives it. The apparel of a meek and quiet 
spirit, St. Peter says, is a womanly adorning 
which is in the sight of God of great price. A 
dry morsel and quietness therewith, the wise 
man tells us, is better than feasting with strife. 
Then we are assured that in quietness and in 
confidence there is strength. 

Thus the thought of quietness shines with 
very bright lustre in the Scriptures. It is used 



THE BLESSING OF QUIETNESS. 43 

sometimes in its literal sense. Evidently God 
does not like noise. Then sometimes it is used 
to denote the restful spirit. Restlessness is not 
spiritually beautiful. Peace is a high attain- 
ment. Thus quietness indicates a rich Chris- 
tian culture. It is not easily reached. Soldiers 
say that in war it is much harder to stand 
still under fire than it is to rush into the battle. 
It is easier to be in the midst of the active 
duties and struggles of spiritual life than it is 
to be compelled to wait and be still. Waiting 
is harder than working. For many people it 
requires more strength to work quietly than 
it does to bluster. It is only the great engine 
that runs noiselessly ; the little machine fusses 
and sputters. Quietness in a man or a woman 
is a mark of strength. 

Many persons suppose that noise indicates 
strength. They think a man is a great preacher 
just in proportion to the loudness of his voice. 
Eloquence is noise. Boanerges has great spirit- 
ual power. The noisy man is the strong one. 
People who make the most bluster and show 
are the greatest workers. But a closer obser- 



44 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

vation soon shows us that this is an untrue 
measurement. Noise is not eloquence. Loud- 
ness is not power. The great preacher is the 
one who most deeply and widely impresses 
other lives, turns them from sin to holiness and 
makes them blessings in the world. Noise is 
impertinent in Christ's work and detracts from 
the preacher's power. 

" We mar our work for God by noise and bustle ; 
Can we not do our part and not be heard ? 
Why should we care that men should see us 
With our tools, and praise the skill with which we use 

them? 
And oftentimes we chafe and think it hard 
That we should lay our * great ' and ' costly ' stones 
For other men to build on and get praised, 
While our names are forgotten or passed o^r." 

In all departments of life it is the quiet forces 
that effect most. The sunbeams fall all day 
long, silently, unheard by human ear ; yet there 
is in them a wondrous energy and a great 
power for blessing and good. Gravitation is a 
silent force, with no rattle of machinery, no 
noise of engines, no clanking of chains, and yet 



THE BLESSING OF QUIETNESS. 45 

it holds all the stars and worlds in their orbits 
and swings them through space with unvarying 
precision. The dew falls silently at night when 
men sleep, and yet it touches every plant and 
leaf and flower with new life and beauty. It 
is in the lightning, not in the thunder-peal, 
that the electric energy resides. Thus even 
in nature, strength lies in quietness and the 
mightiest energies work noiselessly. 

The same is true also in moral and spiritual 
things. It is in the calm, quiet life that the 
truest strength is found. The power that is 
blessing the world these days comes from the 
purity, sweetness, and self-denial of gentle 
mother-love, from the voiceless influence of 
example in faithful fathers, from the patience 
and unselfishness of devoted sisters, from the 
tender beauty of innocent child-life in homes ; 
above all, from the silent cross and the divine 
Spirit's breathings of gentle stillness. The 
agencies that are doing the most to bless the 
world are the noiseless ones. Moral power 
seems to hide itself in silent ministries and to 
shun those that advertise themselves. The 



46 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

kingdom of heaven cometh not with obser- 
vation. 

If therefore we would be strong we must 
learn to be quiet. A noisy talker is always 
weak, lacking the royal power of control. 
Quietness in speech is a mark of self-mas- 
tery. It is a Bible word which says, " If 
any stumbleth not in word, the same is a 
perfect man, able to bridle the whole body 
also.'' The tendency of the grace of Christ 
in the heart is to soften and refine the whole 
nature. It makes the very tones of the voice 
more gentle. It curbs boisterousness into 
quietness. It represses angry feelings, and 
softens them into the gentleness of love. It 
restrains and subdues resentment, teaching us 
to return kindness for unkindness, gentleness 
for rudeness, blessing for cursing, prayer for 
despiteful usage. " Love suffereth long and 
is kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not 
itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself 
unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked ; 
beareth all things, believeth all things." 

The love of Christ in the heart makes one 



THE BLESSING OF QUIETNESS. 47 

like Christ himself, and he was quiet. He was 
never flustered. He never fumed nor fretted, 
was never worried. He never spoke hastily 
nor impatiently. His voice was never heard 
on the street. There was a calmness in his 
soul that showed itself in every word he spoke, 
in every look of his eye, in all his bearing. 

It is well that we learn the lesson of quiet- 
ness. It is a secret of power. It will save us 
from outbursts of temper and from saying the 
rash and hasty words which one hour afterward 
we should be sorry for having said, and which 
if spoken would make so much bitterness and 
trouble for us. It will enable us to be cheer- 
ful and patient amid the cares and vexations of 
life. 

There is a blessing in being still and 
quiet in the time of suffering. " Does it 
hurt you severely ? " one asked of a friend 
who lay with a broken arm. " Not when 
I keep still," was the answer. This is 
the secret of much of the victoriousness 
we see in rejoicing Christians. They conquer 
the pain and the bitterness by keeping still. 



48 THE EVERY-DAY OE LIFE. 

They do not ask questions, nor demand to 
know" why they have trials. They believe in 
God, and are so sure of his love and wisdom, 
that they are pained by no doubt, no fear, no 
uncertainty. Peace is their pillow, because 
they have learned just to be still. Their 
quietness robs trial of its sharpness, sorrow 
of its bitterness, death of its sting, and the 
grave of its victory. 

Quietness is a blessed secret for the wives 
and mothers in the home. It is impossible for 
any gentle woman, though her household life 
be even ideally Christian and happy, to avoid 
having many experiences that try her sensitive 
spirit. Probably the most perfect earthly mar- 
riage has at times, especially in its earlier years, 
its harsh incidents and its rude contacts, which 
tend to disturb the wife's heart and give her 
pain. It is hard, or at least it takes time, for 
the average man to learn to be so gentle that 
no word, touch, act, habit, or disposition of his 
shall ever hurt the heart of the woman he loves 
even most tenderly and truly. Nothing but 
the love on her part that is not provoked, 



THE BLESSING OF QUIETNESS. 49 

that doth not behave itself unseemly, that can 
be silent and sweet — not silent and sullen, but 
silent and sweet — in any circumstances, can 
make even holiest wedded life what it should 
be. Blessed is the wife who has learned this 
lesson. 

Every home with its parents and children 
presents a problem of love which only the 
spirit of quietness can solve. Tastes differ. 
Individuality is ofttimes strong and aggressive. 
There are almost sure to be wilful, self-asser- 
tive spirits in even the smallest family, those 
that want their own way, that are not disposed 
to do even their fair share of the yielding. In 
some homes there are despotic spirits. In the 
best there are diversities of spirit, and the 
process of self-discipline and training requires 
years, before all the household can dwell to- 
gether in ideal sweetness. 

A German musician with an ear exquisitely 
sensitive to harmony, soon after arriving in our 
country was drawn by the sound of singing 
into a church which he was passing. But the 
singing was most discordant, jarring painfully 



SO THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

upon his trained ear. He could not courte- 
ously go out of the house while the service 
was in progress, and therefore he resolved to 
endure the torture as patiently as possible. 
But soon he distinguished, amid the discord 
of the congregation, one voice, the soft, clear 
voice of a woman, singing calmly, steadily, and 
truly. She was not disturbed by the noisy, dis- 
cordant notes of her companions in the wor- 
ship, but sang on patiently, firmly, and sweetly. 
And as the visitor listened, one voice after 
another was drawn by this one singer's gentle 
influence into harmony, until before the hymn 
had been finished, the whole congregation was 
singing in perfect unison. 

So it is often in the making of a home. At 
first the individual lives are wilful, uncon- 
trolled, and self-assertive, and there is discord 
in the household life. It takes time and most 
patient love to bring all into sweet harmony. 
But if the wife and mother, the real home- 
maker, has learned the blessed lesson of quiet- 
ness, her life is the one calm, clear, true song, 
which never falters, and which brings all the 



THE BLESSING OF QUIETNESS. 51 

other lives, little by little, up to its own gentle 
key, until at last the life of the home is indeed 
a sweet song of love. 

Sometimes it is a daughter and sister in the 
home, whose quiet sweetness blesses the whole 
household. She has learned the lesson of 
patience and gentleness. She has smiles for 
every one. She has the happy tact to dissipate 
little quarrels by her kind words. She softens 
the father's ill temper when he comes in weary 
from the day's cares. She is a peacemaker in 
the home, a happiness-maker, through the in- 
fluence of her own lovingness of spirit, and 
draws all at length into harmony with her own 
quietness and peace. 

These are familiar illustrations of the bless- 
ing of quietness. Wherever we find this 
quality in any life it has a wondrous influence. 
It surely is a lesson worth learning, better than 
the winning of a crown. But can it be learned ? 
Can the blustering, quick-tempered, rash-speak- 
ing man or woman learn to be quiet and self- 
mastered ? Yes ; Moses learned it, until he 
became the meekest of men. John learned it, 



52 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

until he became the beloved disciple, lying on 
Jesus' bosom. It can be learned by any one 
who will enter Christ's school, for he says, 
" Come unto me. Take my yoke upon you and 
learn of me ; and ye shall find rest unto your 
soul." Quietness never can come through the 
hushing of the world's noise so that there shall 
be nothing to try or. irritate the spirit. We 
cannot find or make a quiet place to live in, and 
thus get quiet in our own soul. We cannot 
make the people about us so loving and gentle 
that we shall never have anything uncongenial 
or unkindly to vex or annoy us. The quietness 
must be within us. Nothing but the peace of 
God in the heart can give it. Yet we can have 
this peace if we will simply and always do 
God's will and then trust him. A quiet heart 
will give a quiet life. 



CHAPTER V. 

ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 

"Ask God to give thee skill 

In Comfort's art, 
That thou mayst consecrated be 

And set apart 
Unto a life of sympathy. 
For heavy is the weight of ill 

In every heart ; 
And comforters are needed much 

Of Christlike touch." 

A. E. Hamilton. 

It is a sin to be a hinderer. He who makes 
it harder for others to live is doing the adver- 
sary's work. We are in this world to lighten 
burdens, to gather the stones out of the way 
and to make the road of life a little smoother 
and easier. This is the law of Christian life. 
Noblesse oblige, we say, as we see men enjoying 
rare privileges of any kind. They cannot live 
for themselves ; if they do they will lose all. 
They must hold all their gifts and powers for 
the blessing of others. 

53 



54 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

** If I am weak and you are strong, 

Why then, why then, 
To you the braver deeds belong ; 

And so, again, 
If you have gifts and I have none, 
If I have shade and you have sun, 
'Tis yours with freer hand to give, 
'Tis yours with truer grace to live, 
Than I, who giftless, sunless, stand 
With barren life and hand. 

'Tis wisdom's law, the perfect code, 

By love inspired ; 
Of him on whom much is bestowed 

Is much required. 
The tuneful throat is bid to sing, 
The oak must reign the forest's king ; 
The rustling stream the wheel must move, 
The beaten steel its strength must prove. 
'Tis given unto the eagle's eyes 
To face the midday skies." 

It is a radical perversion of the law of 
Christian life, therefore, when one becomes in 
any way a hinderer of others. Yet there are 
many people who do this. There are some 
who do it in a negative way by withholding 
from other lives, in their care and burden 
and sorrow, the cheer, inspiration, or comfort 



ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 55 

which they have it in their power to bestow. 
Sometimes this is done in cold selfishness, 
from sheer indisposition to lend a hand to a 
brother. More frequently, however, it is 
through a lack of sensitiveness to others' needs 
and sufferings, a want of true sympathy with 
human life in its weakness. There are those 
who have never known pain themselves and 
have no sense of pain in others. Some again 
there are whose hearts are sympathetic and 
kindly, but who have never learned the divine 
art of helping and encouraging others. They 
lack that delicacy of touch which is needed 
even when the heart is loving, to impart com- 
fort and inspiration. So it comes that there 
are many people who are hinderers of others 
through the withholding of the cheer and help 
which they might give. 

But there are others whose influence is 
directly and positively hindering. Instead of 
being wings to those whose lives they touch, 
they are weights. They are discouragers. 
They never have a glad, cheerful, hopeful word 
for any one ; on the other hand, they always 



56 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

find some way to dampen ardor, to chill enthusi- 
asm, to discount hope, and to put clouds into 
clear skies. They seem to think it a sin to be 
happy themselves or to encourage happiness in 
any other person. They find all the shadows 
in life and persist in walking, in them. They 
magnify small troubles into great trials. They 
look at little hills of difficulty through lenses of 
morbid feeling that make them grow into tall 
mountains. 

Thus encompassed with gloom themselves, 
they make darkness for others, never brightness, 
wherever they may go. In this way they do a 
great deal of harm in the world. They make all 
life harder for those they influence. Instead of 
being comforters of others, they make sorrow 
harder to bear, because they exaggerate it, and 
because they blot out all the stars of hope and 
comfort which God has set to shine in this 
world's night. They make others' burdens ap- 
pear heavier, because by their discouraging 
philosophy they leave the heart beneath less 
strong and brave to endure. They make life's 
battles sorer for men, because, by their ominous 



ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 57 

forebodings, they paralyze the arm that wields 
the sword. 

The whole effect of the life of these people is 
to discourage others ; to find unpleasant things 
and point them out ; to discover dangers and 
tell about them ; to look for difficulties and 
obstacles and proclaim them. If you meet them 
with buoyant mood, you will not be long in their 
company before you will find all the buoyancy 
stealing out of you under the influence of their 
disheartenment. If you turn to them in your 
trouble, you will go away feeling that your con- 
dition is utterly hopeless, and will be ready 
almost to despair. 

A thoughtful man was asked to contribute 
to the erection of a monument to one of these 
discouragers, and replied, " Not a dollar. I 
am ready to contribute toward building monu- 
ments to those who make us hope, but I will 
not give a dollar to help perpetuate the memory 
and influence of those who live to make us de- 
spair." He was right. Men who make life 
harder for us cannot be called benefactors. 
The true benefactors are those who show us 



58 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

light in our darkness, comfort in our sorrow, 
hope in our despair. 

We all need to be strengthened and inspired, 
never weakened and disheartened for life's ex- 
periences. If we meet others cast down and 
discouraged, it is our duty as their friends, not 
to make their trials and their cares seem as 
great as we can, but rather to point out to them 
the bright light in their clouds and to put new 
hope and courage in their hearts. If we find 
others in sorrow, it is our duty not to tell them 
merely how sorry we are for them, how we pity 
them, but, coming close to them in love, to 
whisper in their ears the comforts of divine 
grace, to make them stronger to endure their 
sorrow. If we find others in the midst of diffi- 
culties and sore struggles, faint and ready almost 
to yield, it is our duty not merely to bemoan 
with them the severity and hardness of their 
battles, and then to leave them to go on to sure 
defeat ; but to stimulate and inspire them to 
bravery and victoriousness. 

It is of vital importance that we learn this 
lesson if we want to be true helpers of others in 



ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 59 

their life. If we have only sadness to give to 
men and women, we have no right to go among 
them. The cloister is the only fit place for such 
moods. It is only when we have something 
that will bless others, and lift up their hearts, 
and give them glimpses of bright and beautiful 
things to live for, that we are truly commis- 
sioned to go forth as evangels into the world. 

" A singer sang a song of tears, 

And the great world heard and wept ; 
For he sang of the sorrows of fleeting years, 
And the hopes which the dead past kept ; 
And souls in anguish their burdens bore, 
And the world was sadder than ever before. 

A singer sang a song of cheer, 
And the great world listened and smiled ; 

For he sang of the love of a Father dear 
And the trust of a little child ; 

And souls that before had forgotten to pray 

Looked up and went singing along the way." 

It is better that we should not sing of sad- 
ness if our song end there. There are sad 
notes enough already floating in the world's 
air, making moan in men's ears. We should 



60 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

sing always of hope, joy, and cheer. Jeremiah 
had a right to weep ; for he sat amid the crum- 
bling ruins of his country's prosperity, looking 
upon the swift and resistless approach of woes 
that might have been averted. Jesus had a 
right to weep on the Mount of Olives ; for his 
eye saw the terrible doom coming upon the 
people he loved, after he had done all in his 
power to avert the doom which sin and unbelief 
were drawing down upon them. But not many 
of us are called to live amid griefs like those 
which broke the heart of Jeremiah. And as 
for Jesus, we know what a preacher of hope he 
was wherever he went. Our mission must be 
to carry to men, not grief and tidings of ill, 
but joy and good news. 

The preachers alone who truly bless the 
world are preachers of hope. One who has 
only questions and doubts to give has no right 
in a Christian pulpit. We ought not to add to 
the perplexity of men by holding up shreds of 
torn pages as if our Christianity were some- 
thing uncertain, a mere "if" or "perhaps." 
" Give me your beliefs," said Goethe; "I have 



ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 6 1 

doubts enough of my own." So people are 
saying to us, "Give us your hopes, your joys, 
your sunshine, your life, your uplifting truths : 
we have sorrows, tears, clouds, ills, chains, 
doubts enough of our own." 

This is the mission of Christianity in the 
world — to help men to be victorious, to whis- 
per hope wherever there is despair, to give 
cheer wherever there is discouragement. It 
goes forth to open prisons, to unbind chains, 
and to bring out captives. Its symbol is not a 
cross only, — that is one of its symbols, telling 
of the price of our redemption, telling of love 
that died, — but its final symbol is an open 
grave, — open and empty. We know what 
that means. It tells of life, not of death ; of 
life victorious over death. And we must not 
suppose that its promise is only for the final 
resurrection ; it is for resurrection every day, 
every hour, over all death. It means uncon- 
querable, unquenchable, indestructible, immor- 
tal life at every point where death seems to 
have won a victory. Defeat anywhere is 
simply impossible, if we are in Christ and 



62 THE £ VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Christ in us. It is just as true of the Christ 
in us as it was of the Christ who went down 
into Joseph's tomb, that he cannot be holden 
of death. 

It follows that there never can be a loss in a 
Christian's life out of which a gain may not 
come, as a plant from a buried seed. There 
never can be a sorrow out of which a blessing 
may not be born. There never can be a dis- 
couragement which may not be made to yield 
some fruit of strength. 

If, therefore, we are true and loyal messen- 
gers of Christ, we can never be prophets of 
gloom, disheartenment, and despair. We must 
ever be heralds of hope. We must always 
have good news to tell. There is a gospel 
which we have a right to proclaim to every 
one, whatever be his sorrow. In Christ there 
is always hope, a secret of victory, a power to 
transmute loss into gain, to change defeat to 
victory, to bring .life from death. We are 
living worthily only when we are living victori- 
ously ourselves at every point, when we are 
inspiring and helping others to live victori- 



ON BEING A DISCOURAGER. 6$ 

ously, and when our life is a song of hope and 
gladness, even though we sing out of tears and 
pain. 

So it is our mission to be helpers, never 
hinderers, of others' faith and hope. Wherever 
we find one who is weary or disheartened it is 
our part to take him by the hand and help him 
to rise, and to hold him by the hand till he is 
able to walk in safety. One word of discour- 
agement from us in the presence of a human 
struggler is treason to a soul we are set to help 
and protect with our own life. Here are some 
lines which give us our lesson : — 

" So you fell just now in the mud, poor heart ! 

And to try to rise and be clean is vain? 
Take both my hands, now, and do your part. 

So you stand on your feet again. 
Did nobody tell you your feet might slip? 

Did some one push you? (Such things are done.) 
Was your path so rough that you needs must trip ? 

Ah ! the blame is on many — not on one. 
Sobbing still over that ugly stain? 

I may not comfort or hush you, dear. 
Through such sad tears in their burning rain 

Christ and his cross show clear. 



64 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Must you go sorrowing all your day? 

Dear, in suffering souls grow white ; 
Keep my hand through this stony way — 

See where the west turns bright." 

That is very beautiful. The world is ever 
full of human lives whose eternal destiny 
seems to depend upon whether they meet 
cloud or sunshine, encouragement or discour- 
agement, hope or despair, in the faces that 
look into theirs. Guides sometimes warn 
tourists among the Swiss mountains not to 
speak as they pass certain points. Even the 
reverberation of a whisper in the air may start 
a poised avalanche from its place on the crags. 
There are times in the story of many human 
lives when they are so delicately poised that 
it depends on how the first person they meet 
greets them whether they sink into the dark- 
ness of despair or lift up their head to find 
hope. We never know when passing mood of 
ours may decide a soul's destiny. We dare 
not then, even for a moment, or in one case, be 
a discourager of another soul. 



CHAPTER VI. 

MAKING LIFE A SONG. 

u In the still air the music lies unheard ; 

In the rough marble beauty hides unseen ; 
To make the music and the beauty needs 
The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen. 

Great Master, touch us with thy skilful hands ; 

Let not the music that is in us die ! 
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us ; nor let, 

Hidden aad lost, thy form within us lie ! 

. Horatius Bonar. 

A beautiful scrap of instruction out of old 
rabbinical lore tells us that there are in heaven 
two kinds of angels — the angels of service and 
the angels of praise. The latter are of a higher 
order than the former. No one of them praises 
God twice, but having once lifted up his voice 
in the song of heaven, he ceases to be. He 
has perfected his being. His song is the full 
flower and perfect fruit of his life, that for 
which he was made. He has now finished his 

65 



66 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

work, and his life is breathed out in his one holy 
psalm. 

There is in this delightful fancy a deep truth, 
that the highest act of which an immortal life 
is capable is praise. The unpraising life has not 
yet realized its holiest mission. It has not yet 
borne the sweetest, ripest, best fruit, that 
which in God's sight is most precious of all. 
In heaven all life is praise, and we come near 
heaven's spirit only as we learn to praise. 

No other duty is enjoined so often in the 
Scriptures as praise. There are not so many 
texts about prayer as there are about praise. 
The Bible is full of music. The woods in the 
summer days are not so full of bird-notes as 
this sacred book is of voices of song. Christian 
life can realize the divine thought for it only by 
being songful. The old fable of the harp of 
Memnon, that it began to breathe out sweet 
music the moment the morning light swept its 
chords, has its true fulfilment in the human soul, 
which, the instant the light of divine love 
breaks upon it, gives forth notes of gladness 
and praise. 



MAKING LIFE A SONG. 6*J 

The gift of song is one of the noblest endow- 
ments bestowed upon mortals. But there is a 
music that is not vocal. Every one should be 
able to make music in the world though he can- 
not sing a note. Milton says that he who 
hopes to write well in laudable things, ought 
himself to be a true poem, that is, a composition 
of the best and noblest things. One cannot 
really sing songs that will be music in God's 
ears, whose own life is not first a song in its 
sweetness and beauty. 

It is a great thing to write a hymn that lives. 
To have composed such a song as the Twenty- 
third Psalm, " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," or 
" Jesus, Lover of my Soul," is one of the 
noblest achievements possible in the world. 
Think what a ministry such songs have had, 
how many lives they have blessed, how much 
sorrow they have comforted. No other human 
service can be more blessed than to be per- 
mitted to give to the world a sweet song which 
shall go singing on its way through generations. 
Yet we cannot all write hymns. We are not 
all poets, gifted to weave sweet thoughts into 



68 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

rhythmic verse that will charm men's souls. 
We cannot all make hymns which shall become 
as angels of peace, comfort, joy, or inspiration 
to weary lives. To only a few men and women 
in a generation is the poet's tongue given. 

But there is a way in which we may all make 
songs ; we can make our own life a song if we 
will. It does not need the poet's gift and art 
to do this, nor does it require that we shall be 
taught and trained in colleges and universities. 
The most unlettered man may live so that gentle 
music shall breathe forth from his life through 
all his days. He needs only to be true and lov- 
ing. Every beautiful life is a song. 

There are many people who live in circum- 
stances and conditions of hardness and hard- 
ship, and who seem to make no music in the 
world. Their life is of that utterly prosaic kind 
that is devoid of all sentiment, which has no 
place for sentiment amid its severe toils and 
under its heavy burdens. Even home tender- 
nesses seem to find little opportunity for growth 
in the long leisureless days. Yet even such lives 
as these, doomed to hardest, dreariest toil, may 



MAKING LIFE A SONG. 69 

and ofttimes do become songs which minister 
blessing to many others. The other day a 
workingman presented himself for admission 
to the church. He was asked what sermon or 
appeal had led him to take this step. No ser- 
mon, no one's word, he answered, but a fellow- 
workman for many years at the bench beside 
him had been so true, so faithful, so Christlike 
in his character and conduct, in his disposition 
and temper, that his influence had brought his 
companion to Christ. This man's life, amid 
all its hardness, was a song of love. 

There are many people living in the midst of 
unattractive circumstances, amid hardship, toil, 
and care, whose daily life breathes out gentle 
music which blesses others about them. They 
do no great services, but they crowd the hours 
with little ministries which fall like silver bell- 
notes on weary hearts. They are faithful in all 
their commonplace duties. They are patient 
under all manner of irritating experiences. 
They keep happy and contented even in times 
of suffering and need, cheerful and trusting 
even in want. They live in quiet harmony with 



JO THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

the will of God, making no jarring discords 
by insubmission or wilfulness. Thus in their 
lowly sphere they make music which is sweet 
to the ear both of God and man. 

God wants our life to be a song. He has 
written the music for us in his Word and in the 
duties that come to us in our places and rela- 
tions in life. The things we ought to do are 
the notes set upon the staff. After the music 
is written faultlessly, the singer or the player 
must render it perfectly, or there will be dis- 
cord. We all know how one untrue voice may 
mar even the noblest music by singing falsely. 
To make our life beautiful music we must be 
obedient and submissive. Any disobedience is 
the singing of a false note and yields discord. 
Any insubmission breaks the melody. Obedi- 
ence and joyous submission make glad music. 

But how much broken music there is in 
most of our lives ! We fail in love's duties. 
Envious thoughts and feelings, jealousies, bitter- 
ness, anger, resentment, selfishness, all unlov- 
ing words, acts, and tempers, are harsh discor- 
dances which spoil the melody. Pride mars 



MAKING LIFE A SONG. Jl 

it ; so does a violent temper. Certain hideous 
sounds made on musical instruments are called 
" wolf-notes." There are wolf-notes made some- 
times in human lives — anger, hate, lust, the 
wild utterances of passion. But we ought to 
strive to make only sweet music. 

Our circumstances cannot always be easy. 
We cannot always have our own way. There 
will be many things, in the most favored lot, 
which would naturally jar upon the chords of 
our life. But we should learn so to live as to 
yield only the music of love and peace, what- 
ever our experiences may be. 

" Our lives are songs ; God writes the words, 

And we set them to music at pleasure ; 
And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad, 

As we choose to fashion the measure. 
We must write the music, whatever the song, 

Whatever its rhyme or metre ; 
And if it is sad, we can make it glad, 

Or if sweet, we can make it sweeter." 

A perfectly holy life would be a perfect song. 
In heaven this ideal melody will be attainable. 
There these life-harps of ours will be perfectly 
attuned, and we shall have learned the lessons 



/2 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

of love so well that we shall never strike the 
wrong note. At the best on the earth, how- 
ever, our lives are imperfect in their harmonies, 
like instruments not yet in tune. If we are 
indeed in Christ's school we are ever coming 
nearer and nearer in our renewed nature to the 
perfect divine likeness, and are learning to make 
sweeter and sweeter music as the days go by. 

We need to learn well the truth that only the 
Master's hand can bring out of our souls the 
music that slumbers in them. A violin lies on 
the table, silent and still. We know that it is 
capable of giving out marvellous music. One 
weak hand takes it up and begins to draw the 
bow across the strings, but it yields only harsh, 
wailing discords. Then a master comes and 
takes it up. First he puts the strings in tune, 
and then he brings from the little instrument 
most entrancing strains. Our lives are like this 
violin. They are capable of producing rich and 
beautiful melody. But they must be skilful 
hands that touch the chords. 

There are some people who seem able to 
bring out the best that is in us. Under their in- 



MAKING LIFE A SONG. J^ 

fluence we are stimulated and inspired to noble 
and beautiful things. There are teachers who 
have wonderful power in finding and drawing 
out the best elements in the lives of their 
pupils. There are parents under whose wise 
and gentle touch the hearts of their children 
yield all beautiful qualities. We all have 
friends whose influence over us is genial and 
kindly. We are conscious of being drawn ever 
toward goodness and truth and purity when 
with them. They arouse in us noble longings 
and aspirations. They call out our best endeav- 
ors and our gentlest and kindliest dispositions. 
Others there are whose touch upon our life 
is uncongenial and unkindly, like the playing 
of an unskilled person upon a musical instru- 
ment. They arouse not our better, but our 
worse natures. They bring from us not sweet 
music, but jarring discord. 

There is only One who can take our lives 
with all their fault and sin, their broken strings 
and jangled chords, and bring from them the 
music of love, joy, and peace. It is related 
that once Mendelssohn came to see the great 



74 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Freiburg organ. The old custodian, not know- 
ing who his visitor was, refused him permission 
to play upon the instrument. At length, how- 
ever, after much persuasion, he granted him 
leave to play a few notes. Mendelssohn took 
his seat, and soon the most wonderful music 
was breaking forth from the organ. The old 
man was spell-bound. At length he came up 
beside the great master and asked his name. 
Learning it, he stood humiliated, self-con- 
demned, saying, "And I refused you permis- 
sion to play upon my organ ! " There comes 
One to us and desires to take our life and play 
upon it. But we withhold ourselves from him 
and refuse him permission, when if we would 
but yield ourselves to him, he would bring from 
our souls heavenly music. 

" We are but organs mute, till a master touches the 
keys — 
Verily vessels of earth into which God poureth the 
wine ; 
Harps are we, silent harps, that have hung in the willow 
trees, 
Dumb till our heartstrings swell and break with a 
pulse divine. 



MAKING LIFE A SONG. 75 

It is often in sorrow that our lives are taught 
their sweetest songs. There is a story of a 
German baron who stretched wires from tower 
to tower of his castle, to make a great ^Eolian 
harp. Then he waited and listened to hear the 
music from it. For a time the air was still and 
no sound was heard. The wires hung silent in 
the air. After a while came gentle breezes, and 
the harp sang softly. At length came the stern 
winter winds, strong and stormlike in their 
forces. Then the wires gave forth majestic 
music which was heard near and far. There 
are human lives that never, in the calm of quiet 
days, yield the music that is in them. When 
the breezes of common care sweep over them 
they give out soft murmurings of song. But it 
is only when the storms of adversity blow upon 
them that they answer in notes of noble victori- 
ousness. It takes sore trouble to bring out the 
best that is in them. 

" Spare not the stroke ! do with us as thou wilt ! 

Let there be nought unfinished, broken, marred ; 
Complete thy purpose, that we may become 
Thy perfect image, thou our God and Lord ! " 



?6 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Come what may, we should make our lives 
songs. We have no right to add to the world's 
discords or to sing any but sweet strains in the 
ears of others. We should start no note of 
sadness in this world which is already so full 
of sadness. We should add something every 
day to the stock of the world's happiness. If 
we are truly Christ's and walk with him we 
cannot but sing. If we live according to the 
law of God, which is really the law of our own 
inner spiritual life, our lives should be sweet 
songs. ' 

" By thine own souPs law learn to live ; 
And if men thwart thee, take no heed, 
And if men hate thee, have no care — 

Sing thou thy song, and do thy deed ; 
Hope thou thy hope, and pray thy prayer, 
And claim no crown they will not give." 



CHAPTER VII. 

LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 

" Walk with thy fellow-creatures ; note the hush 
And whisperings among them. Not a spring 
Or leaf but hath his morning hymn. Each bush 
And oak doth sing I am. Canst thou not sing? " 

There is more to be said about making life 
a song than was said in the last chapter. Each 
one of us should live so as to make music in 
this world. This we can do by simple, cheerful 
obedience. He who does God's will faithfully- 
each day makes his life a song. The music is 
peace. It has no jarring dissonances, no anxie- 
ties, frets, or worries, no rebellings or doubts. 
For a child who asked him to write a song for 
her, Charles Kingsley once wrote : — 

" My fairest child, I have no song to give you ; 
No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray ; 
Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I'll give you 
For every day. 

77 



78 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

I'll tell you how to sing a clearer carol 

Than lark who hails the dawn or breezy down ; 
To earn yourself a purer poet's laurel 
Than Shakespeare's crown. 

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever ; 
Do lovely things, not dream them all day long ; 
And so make life and death and that for ever 
One grand, sweet song." 

But we must make music also in relations as 
well as singly. We do not live alone ; we live 
in companionships, in families, in friendship's 
circles, in churches, in communities. It is one 
thing for a singer to sing solos, and to sing 
expressively, truly, in perfect time, in harmoni- 
ous proportion. There are no other voices then 
to be waited for, to hurry after, to harmonize 
or blend with. The soloist can sing at sweet 
will, without restriction or limitation or fear 
of clashing or jarring. But it is quite another 
thing for several persons to sing together, in 
choir or chorus, and their voices all to blend in 
harmony. It is necessary in this latter case 
that they should all have the same key and that 
they should sing carefully and unselfishly, each 
watching the others and controlling, repressing, 



LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 79 

or restraining his own voice for the sake of the 
effect of the whole, full music. If one sings 
falsely, out of tune or out of time, he mars the 
harmony of the chorus. If one sings without 
regard to the other voices, only for the display 
of his own, his part is out of proportion and the 
effect is unhappy. It requires the spirit of self- 
repression, self-effacement, to be one of a com- 
pany of singers. One must give* up all desire 
for personal prominence or conspicuousness, and 
be content to lose one's self in the song which 
all together sing. 

Yet it is necessary not only that we make 
sweet music in our individual lives, but also 
that in choirs or choruses in which we may 
find ourselves only individual members, we do 
our part in making pleasing harmony. Some 
people are very good alone, where no other life 
comes in contact with theirs, where they are 
entirely their own master and have to think 
only of themselves, and where they can have 
their own way, who yet make most wretched 
business of living when they come into relations 
with others. Then they are selfish, tyrannical, 



80 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

absorbing, despotic, wilful. They will not 
brook suggestion, request, authority. They 
will not make any compromise, will not yield 
their own opinions, preferences, or prejudices, 
will not submit to any inconvenience, any sacri- 
fice. They are good in many respects. They 
live morally. They do good in the world. 
They are even generous in certain ways, and 
may be refined and cultured. But they cannot 
live cordially with people ; at least other peo- 
ple cannot live cordially with them. They have 
not the remotest conception of life with self- 
denials and sacrifices in it, in which others 
have to be considered. 

But we are not good Christians until we 
have learned to live Christianly in relations. 
For example, in the family. A true marriage 
means the ultimate bringing of two lives into 
such perfect oneness that there shall not be a 
discord in the blended music. " They twain 
shall be one/' To attain this each must give 
up much. Neither can move on independently 
of the other, without thought or without self- 
forgetfulness. The relation is not that of mas- 



LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 8 1 

ter and slave, but that of love. There must be 
on the part of both, self-repression, self-renun- 
ciation. The aim of each must be — what al- 
ways is true love's aim — to serve the other, the 
deeper love to serve the more deeply. Only in 
perfect love which is utterly self -forgetful, can 
there be perfect blending of lives. 

Then as a family grows up in the home, it 
is harder still to keep the music without dis- 
sonance, with the varying individual tastes and 
preferences which are disposed to assert them- 
selves often in aggressive ways. It can be 
done only by keeping love always the ruling 
motive. But there are families that never do 
learn to live together lovingly. Ofttimes the 
harmony is spoiled by one member of the 
household who will not yield to the sway of un- 
selfishness nor repress and deny self for the 
good of all. On the other hand, in homes that 
do grow into the ripeness of love, there is oft- 
times one life that by its calm, true, serene 
peace which nothing can disturb, at length 
draws all the discordant elements of the house- 
hold life into accord with itself and so perfects 



82 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

the music of the home. It takes but little 
things to mar the music ; and it takes but the 
little things of love, the amenities, the thought- 
fulnesses, the words in season, the gentle acts 
of common kindness, to make home's music 
almost divinely sweet. Says George MacDon- 
ald: — 

* ' Alas ! how easily things go wrong ; 
A sigh too much or a kiss too long, 
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, 
And life is never the same again. 

Alas ! how hardly things go right ! 
1 Tis hard to watch on a summer's night, 
For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay, 
And the summer's night is a winter's day. 

And yet how easily things go right, 
If the sigh and the kiss of the winter's night 
Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray 
That is born in the light of the winter's day. 

And things can never go badly wrong 
If the heart be true and the love be strong ; 
For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain 
Will be changed by the love into sunshine again." 

In all relations the same lesson has somehow 
to be learned. We must learn to live with 



LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 83 

other people and live with them in harmony of 
love. And people are not all good and gentle. 
Not many of them are so self-forgetful that 
they are willing to do all the yielding, all the 
giving up or sacrificing. We must each do our 
share of this office of love if we are to live hap- 
pily in relations. Some people's idea of giving 
up is that the other person must do it all. 
That is what some despotic husbands in Tur- 
key and some other places think that their 
wives ought to do. 

In all associated life there is the same ten- 
dency to let the yielding be done by the other 
person. "We get along splendidly," a man 
says, referring to his business, or to some asso- 
ciated work. " So and so is very easy to live 
with. He is gentle and yielding and always 
gives up. So I have things my own way, and 
we get on together beautifully." Certainly, 
but that is not the Christian way of getting on 
together. The self-repression and self-renunci- 
ation should be mutual. " In honor preferring 
one another/' is St. Paul's rule. When each 
person in any association of lives does this, 



84 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

seeking the honor and promotion of the other, 
not thinking of himself, the music is full of 
harmony. The essential thing in love is not 
receiving, but giving ; not the desire to be 
helped or humored, but to help or humor. 

Then, not in relations only, but in circum- 
stances also, must we learn to make our life a 
song. This is not hard when all things are to 
our mind, when we are in prosperity, when 
friends surround us, when the family circle is 
unbroken, when health is good, when there are 
no crosses, and when no self-denials are re- 
quired. But it is not so easy when the flow of 
pleasant circumstances is rudely broken, when 
sorrow comes, when bitter disappointment 
dashes away the hopes of years. Yet Chris- 
tian faith can keep the music unbroken even 
through such experiences as these. The music 
is changed. It grows more tender. Its tones 
become deeper, tremulous sometimes, as the 
tears creep into them. But it is really enriched 
and made more sweet and beautiful. 

Our lives are harps of God, but many of them 
do not give out their sweetest music in calm of 



LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 85 

quiet, prosperous days. It is only in the heavy 
storms of trial, in adversity, in sore pain or 
loss, that the richest, noblest music comes 
from our souls. Most of us have to learn our 
best and truest lessons in the stress of trial. 
In few homes is the music of the glad, tearless 
days so deep and rich as it is after grief has 
come. The household song is sweetest when 
the voices choke with sobbing. 

We should seek to have our life so trained, 
so disciplined, that no sudden change of cir- 
cumstances shall ever stop its music ; that if 
we are carried suddenly out of our summer of 
joy to-day into a winter of grief to-morrow, the 
song shall still go on unbroken, the song of 
faith, love, peace. Paul had learned this when 
he could say, " I have learned, in whatsoever 
state I am, therein to be content. I know how 
to be abased, and I know also how to abound.' 1 
Circumstances did not affect him, for the 
source of his peace and joy was in Christ. 

How can we get these lessons ? There is an 
old legend of an instrument that hung silent 
upon a castle wall. Its strings were broken. 



86 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

It was covered with dust. No one understood 
it and no one could put it in order. But one 
day a stranger came to the castle. He saw the 
instrument on the wall. Taking it down, he 
quickly brushed the webs and dust from it, 
tenderly reset the broken strings, then played 
upon it. 

" Then chords long silent woke beneath his touch, 
And hearts and voices round were strangely stilled 

As deeper rolled the harmony and grand, 
Till all the castle with the notes was filled ; 

It pealed the war-notes 'mid the conflict's din, 
Then sank into a solemn requiem. 

Beneath the lingers of the master hand 
Gladly it echoed youth's ambitious dream ; 

Then, gently, like the ripples on the shore, 
Whispered sweet confidence in love supreme. 

Changeful the theme as waves upon the sea, 
From low-breathed hope to psalms of victory." 

Every human life in its unrenewed state is 
such a harp, with broken strings, tarnished by 
sin. It is capable of giving forth music mar- 
vellously rich and beautiful. But first it must 
be restored, its strings reset ; and the only one 
who can do this is the Maker of the harp, the 



LIFE-MUSIC IN CHORUS. 87 

Lord Jesus Christ. Only he can bring the 
jangled chords of our life into tune so that 
when played upon they shall give forth rich 
music. We must, therefore, surrender our 
hearts to him that he may repair and restore 
them. Then we shall be able to make music, 
not in our individual lives only, but in whatso- 
ever relations our lot may be cast, and in what- 
soever circumstances it may fall to us to dwell. 

11 Learn thou the noble lesson, O my soul, 

To find in life's grand symphony thy part ; 
And seek the soul-harps in a darkened land 
To lay beneath the Master's skilful hand. 

For myriad souls there are, on distant shore, 
O'er which the dust of sin has settled deep ; 

Ah ! could the tender Christ but brush away, 
And o'er the slumbering tones his fingers sweep, 

A world would pause to catch the echoing chord 
Of music wakened 'neath the touch of God." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 

" The world sits at the feet of Christ, 
Unknowing, blind, and unconsoled ; 
It shall yet touch his garment's fold, 
And feel the heavenly Alchemist 
Transmute its very dust to gold." 

Love for Christ is transforming the world. 
Love always transforms. Many a life is made 
beautiful by a pure, sweet, strong human love. 
Who has not seen a young wife, with light, 
girlish nature, without seriousness, caring only 
for herself as it seemed, almost trivial, her 
friends thought, until a baby came, when all 
was changed ? She became serious, thoughtful, 
earnest. Self died, and her soul flowed out in 
unsparing service. She lived now for her child. 
The hands that heretofore had been idle be- 
came ministering hands. Too dainty before for 
any toil or any rough touch, they were now used 



LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 89 

without thought in caring for her child. Her 
whole being was transformed and shone now 
in noble beauty. Love had wrought the change. 
Little children are God's angels to thousands 
of young mothers, sent to bless them by draw- 
ing their heart away from self. For we never 
learn to live until we cease to think of ourselves 
and begin to live for some object outside of self. 
Selfishness destroys the life, blights its beauty, 
withers up its powers, lays a curse upon it. 
Love saves the life, develops its faculties, 
calls out its best. 

There was a childless home. Husband and 
wife grew up together in mutual love, but, 
having no interest outside of their own lives, 
they became selfish, grasping, covetous. Years 
passed, and they were growing rich, but were 
miserly, saving every possible cent. They 
pinched themselves, living almost like beggars, 
with thin clothing, poor fare, in fireless rooms. 
They gave nothing away to the relief of the 
need and distress about them. Appeals for 
God's work met with no response. Thus time 
passed till they had reached mid-life. Then the 



90 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

breaking up of another home by the death of the 
parents, brought a little child into this cold, love- 
less, dreary home. At once the child found her 
way into both these withering hearts, and little 
by little the love awoke. Almost instantly there 
was a change. The home was brightened. The 
hoarded money was brought out and was spent 
more freely. The poor were remembered. 
God's cause received help. The faces that 
were growing old and cold with the lines of 
greed and grasping desire became soft and 
warm with love's subtle warmth. The two 
lives were transformed. God had saved them 
through a little child. 

These are only familiar illustrations of what 
even human love does continually in this world. 
We do not know what God is doing for us when 
he gives us friends to love, especially when he 
gives us those the loving of whom costs us 
something. The blessing comes through the 
serving, through the giving out of life. An 
invalid or a suffering one in a home is ofttimes 
the means of softening, refining, and enriching 
all the household lives. When God sends you 



LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 9 1 

one to love who becomes a burden upon your 
heart, who calls for sacrifice, service, patient 
care and thought and cost, lift up your eyes 
and reverently thank him, for there is a divine 
blessing for yourself in this ministering in 
Christ's name. Such loving helps in saving 
our souls. This is a losing of life which is in 
reality the finding of it. 

But it is the loving of Christ which works 
the most wonderful transformations. It has 
changed millions of lives from sin, sordidness, 
cruelty, degradation, and crime, into beauty, 
gentleness, refinement, saintliness. It is nearly 
two thousand years since Christ died upon the 
cross, rested in the grave, and arose from the 
dead. All these centuries multitudes in each 
generation have believed in him and loved him ; 
and love for him has changed their lives, lifted 
them up and drawn them after him in holy 
devotion. His followers have learned the lessons 
of patience, unselfishness, endurance of wrong, 
forgiveness of injuries, compassion for the 
weak, pity for the lost, and kindly ministry 
to the needy and the sorrowing. The whole 



92 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

blessed work of Christianity is simply the in- 
fluence of the love of the unseen Christ in 
human hearts and lives. 

" But how can we love one whom we have 
not seen and cannot see ? " is a question which 
many ask. For one thing we may learn all the 
story of Christ as told in the Gospels, until we 
are familiar with it. Then we may remember 
that while Christ is unseen on the earth, he is 
as really present as he was during the years of 
his abode in Palestine. He promised, " I am 
with you all the days," and he certainly meant 
just what he said. His presence does not 
depend on our seeing him. 

Indeed, we never really see any of our friends. 
It is not the human form you can see that is 
the person you love. It is not your mother's 
face and hair and hand and body that you 
love ; it is her soul, her spirit. It is not her 
body that is gentle, patient, kind, thoughtful, 
unselfish. A body cannot love. Even the 
most lovely face cannot itself be a benediction 
to you. It is the life that dwells in the body 
that is your mother. You can say of her, in a 



LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 93 

sense that is true, " Whom having not seen I 
love." Take any friend who is much to you, 
on whom you lean, and it is not the body 
that you love. There is sweetness in a face, 
kindly warmth in an eye, thrilling inspiration 
in a touch. Why ? Because of the soul that 
is in the body. But the body is not your friend, 
whom you have really never seen, since you 
cannot see truth, purity, love, sympathy, con- 
stancy, strength. 

We cannot see Christ, but if we have become 
his, he is indeed our personal friend and is 
really to us all that such a divine Friend can be. 
What is it in your best human friend that is 
most to you, on which you lean most in weak- 
ness, which comforts you most in sorrow, which 
is the best help to you in any need or trouble ? 
Is it anything in your friend which you can see ? 
Is it not his truth, his wisdom, his love for you, 
his sympathy, his faithfulness, his constancy ? 
Even if he is not with you at all so that you 
can see him, is he not still a strength to you, a 
comfort, a refuge, a help ? The consciousness 
that he is your friend ; that whatever else may 



94 THE EVERY-DAY OE LIEE. 

fail you he will not ; that he sympathizes with 
you, understands you, will be patient with you ; 
the assurance that if need be he will help you 
with all the capacity for helpfulness there is in 
him, — makes you strong, blesses you, gives 
you peace, though you see him not. 

You cannot see Christ, but you believe that he 
is true, loving, faithful, touched with sympathy 
when you suffer ; that he knows all about you 
and loves you with a love personal, deep, tender, 
strong, everlasting. You know, too, that he 
has all power and that all his power is yours to 
support, keep, bless, deliver, protect, save you. 
You know that he has all wisdom — wisdom 
that never errs, that never counsels rashly, in- 
discreetly, short-sightedly, and that all this wis- 
dom is for the guidance of your life, the order- 
ing of your steps. As we think along these 
lines the unseen Christ becomes very real 
to us. 

Loving this Friend whom we cannot see be- 
comes then a blessed power in our life. For 
one thing we learn to trust him and leave in 
his hands all the affairs of our life. " In whom 



LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 95 

though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye 
greatly rejoice." 

" I cannot know why suddenly the storm 
Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath ; 
But this I know — God watches all my path, 
And I can trust. 

I may not draw aside the mystic veil 
That hides the unknown future from my sight, 
Nor know if for me waits the dark or light ; 
But I can trust. 

I have no power to look across the tide, 
To see while here the land beyond the river ; 
But this I know — I shall be God's for ever ; 
So I can trust." 

Many people have altogether too narrow 
a conception of what Christ does for them. 
They think of him as forgiving their sins, 
changing their hearts, helping them in their 
purely spiritual affairs, and bringing them home 
at last to heaven. But there is nothing in our 
life which is not of interest to him, and true be- 
lieving in Christ implies the putting into his 
hands of all our affairs. This may not always 
be easy. We like to have our own way, to carry 



96 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

out our own plans. We do not like to have sor- 
row and disappointment break in upon us. Yet 
if he is to fashion our life into heavenly beauty, 
he must have his way with us. Thus we get a 
glimpse of the meaning of trial. If sorrow 
comes in place of the joy you had planned for 
yourself, it is because sorrow is better than joy 
would have been. Christ may ofttimes seem 
to be spoiling the beauty of our life ; but it is 
ours to trust him even then, and by and by we 
shall know that his way was wiser than ours. 
Tapestry weavers see only the wrong side as 
they weave. 

* ' My life is but a weaving 

Between my God and me ; 
I may but choose the colors — 

He worketh steadily. 
Full oft he weaveth sorrow ; 

And I in foolish pride 
Forget he sees the upper 

And I the under side." 

Loving this unseen Saviour will draw us into 
his service. No transformation into his charac- 
ter is complete which does not make us like 
him in the devotion of our life to the good of 



LOVING THE UNSEEN FRIEND. gj 

the world. Perhaps we sometimes overlook 
this, thinking of Christlikeness as gentleness, 
patience, meekness, purity, truth, without the 
active element. But when Christ put the 
thought of his mission into a sentence it was : 
" The Son of man came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ran- 
som for many." Not otherwise can we conceive 
of our mission as followers of Christ. We 
must follow him in self-denial and sacrifice, in 
the true laying of our life upon the altar of love. 
It is this that the world needs to-day — the life 
of Christ repeated in the lives of his people, in 
lowly services that shall fill the earth with the 
fragrance of love, and carry blessing into every 
nook and corner of it. 

Not long shall he be to us an unseen Saviour. 
We shall soon go to be with him. 

" A little while, with tides of dark and night, 
The moon shall fill ; 
Glad summer's glow be changed to shrouding white 
And winter's chill. 

A little while shall tender, winsome flowers 

In beauty blow ; 
And ceaselessly, through shade and sunny hours. 

Death's harvest grow. 



98 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

A little while shall tranquil planets speed 

Round central flame ; 
New empires spring and pass, new names succeed 

And lapse from fame. 

A little while shall cold star tapers burn 

Through time's brief night ; 
Then shall my soul's beloved One return 

With dayspring bright. 

How oft in golden dreams I see him stand, 

I list his voice, 
As, winning largess from his lifted hand 

The poor rejoice. 

But waking bears that vision dear away, 

My better part, 
And leaves in me this pale and empty day, 

This longing heart. 

I cannot see thee, but I love thee ! Oh, 

Thine eyes, that read 
The deepest secrets of the spirit, know 

'Tis love indeed. 

A little while ; but, ah ! how long it seems ! 

My Jesus, come, 
Surpass the rapture of my sweetest dreams, 

And take me home." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SECRET OP PEACE. 

" Let nothing disturb thee, 
Nothing affright thee ; 
All things are passing ; 
God never changeth ; 
Patient endurance 
Attaineth to all things ; 
Who God possesseth 
In nothing is wanting ; 
Alone God sufficeth." 

Santa Teresas Bookmark. 

Peace is possible to every believer in Christ. 
No Christian can say, "That is very beautiful. 
It shines in my friend's face like heaven's radi- 
ance. But it is not for me." The peace of 
God is for every believer. God shows no favor- 
itism in dispensing this blessing. There is 
great diversity in the natural gifts and abilities 
bestowed upon individuals. A violet could 
never become a rose. An apple-tree could 
never become an oak. A sparrow could never 

99 



IOO THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

reach the eagle's flight. An owl could never 
learn the canary's song. Not all men can be- 
come fine artists. Not all women can become 
sweet singers. If it were art, or music, or elo- 
quence, or the poet's power, that was set before 
us as the ideal of a true life, many of us might 
say, "I never can attain that." In matters of 
original endowment God divides severally as he 
will. 

But in grace the best is open to all. The 
divine peace is not for a few : it is a blessing 
which all may obtain. No matter how restless, 
how turbulent, how full of care, how naturally 
given to worry and anxiety, one may be, this 
sweet, quiet, restful peace of God is possible 
of attainment. 

Yet there are a great many good people who 
have not yet learned the secret of peace. There 
are Christian men in business, and in the midst 
of life's affairs, who are always full of care, fear- 
ful of the outcome of their ventures, restless, 
tossed on the bosom of life's rough sea like 
leaves on the billows. There are women, Chris- 
tian women, who love Christ and read their Bible, 



THE SECRET OF PEACE. IOI 

and pray, and partake of the Lord's Supper, and 
work in the Sunday school, and in missionary 
societies, and who are very dear to Christ, yet 
whose lives are certainly full of little anxieties. 
They are easily annoyed. Their faces show lines 
of care and fret. Now and then they have brief 
seasons of restful trust, when they seem to 
have gotten the victory, but in a little time they 
are back again in the old broken restlessness. 

This is not the best the religion of Christ 
can do for us. More than two hundred and 
fifty times does the word " peace " occur in the 
Bible. St. Paul, the homeless, hunted, suffer- 
ing apostle, used it more than forty times, writ- 
ing it ofttimes in prison, with a chain rattling 
on his wrist as he wrote. One of our Lord's 
sweetest farewell words was, " Peace I leave 
with you ; " and when he came from the grave, 
three times did the benediction fall from his 
lips : " Peace be unto you." The ideal of life 
for a believer in Christ is one of peace. 

It is very evident that this life of peace is not 
a life without care. Christ nowhere suggests 
the thought that his disciples arc lifted out of 



102 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

the common conditions of earthly life into a 
sheltered pilgrimage, where the storms do not 
beat upon them, where sickness and pain do not 
reach them, where there are no disagreeable 
people to live with and no adversities and disap- 
pointments to mar the calmness and quietness 
of the life from year to year. He said expressly 
that he did not want his disciples taken out of 
the world. The Christian is called to live in 
the midst of the ordinary conditions of life. The 
winds blow no more softly for him. Bad men 
are no more gentle because one of God's chil- 
dren is beside them. Sickness turns not away 
from a home because one of Christ's little ones 
dwells there. Circumstances are no more kindly 
because it is a Christian who is being hurt by 
their pitiless grind. 

Care is one of the conditions of human life. 
The birds have no care. The lambs that feed 
in the meadows have no care. The savage who 
lives in nature's wilderness has but little anxiety. 
His wants are few, and his life lacks that sensi- 
tiveness which feels trials. But as life grows 
in the things that ennoble it and make it worthy 



THE SECRET OF PEACE. 103 

care increases. The love which the religion of 
Christ teaches makes our hearts more and more 
sensitive, so that instead of taking us out of the 
world's trying experiences it makes us feel its 
hardships and burdens all the more. Life's re- 
lationships all bring with them burden and 
anxiety. The peace which Christ promises is 
not made by emptying a little spot of all the 
darkness, suffering, and cost of its condition and 
setting us down into it. 

Nor is this peace produced by so changing 
our nature that we shall not feel the things that 
cause pain and disturbance. To do this, our 
hearts would have to be robbed of the very qual- 
ities in them which are noblest and divinest. 
Only think what it would mean to you to have 
taken out of your life the possibility of suffering 
from the trials, the losses, the injustices and 
wrongs, the sorrows of life. To be made so 
that you would not feel these things would be 
to lose out of your heart the power to love and 
to sympathize. 

Our purest joys and our deepest sufferings lie 
very close together. To have the capacity to 



104 THE £ VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

love and to be happy is to have also the capacity 
to suffer. Religion makes our hearts more 
gentle, more thoughtful, more sympathetic, and 
prepares us to be pained more, not less, by the 
frictions, the trials, the frets of life. The Chris- 
tian suffers no less in sorrow, trial, and care 
because he is a Christian ; he probably suffers 
more. It is no easier, in a human sense, for a 
friend of Christ to meet disappointments, adver- 
sities, bereavements, and losses, and to endure 
the frictions and annoyances of life, than it is 
for the worldly man ; it may be harder. It is 
not by dulling the sensibilities that Christ gives 
peace. It is a peace in the heart which he gives, 
a peace which one may have within, while with- 
out storms are raging ; a calm in the soul in the 
midst of external agitations and tumults ; a 
quiet restfulness which holds the life in serene 
composure even while all things seem to be 
disastrous ; a spirit unperturbed, unfretted, un- 
ruffled, in the midst of life's multitudinous cares. 
What are the secrets of this peace ? How is 
it to be gotten ? St. Paul gives the answer in 
two very definite counsels. The first is, "In 



THE SECRET OF PEACE, 105 

nothing be anxious." Anxiety is worry. We 
cannot help having things in life that would 
naturally make us anxious. Yet come what 
may we are not to be anxious. 

There are reasons for this counsel. Worry 
does no good. It changes nothing. Worrying 
over a disappointment does not give us the 
thing we wanted. Worrying about the weather 
does not make it cold or warm, cloudy or sunny. 
Worrying over a loss does not give us back the 
thing we prized. Our Lord reminds us of the 
uselessness of worry when he says that by being 
anxious about our stature we cannot make our- 
selves any taller. 

Anxiety enfeebles and wastes one's strength. 
One day's worry exhausts a person more than a 
whole week of quiet, peaceful work. It is 
worry, not overwork, as a rule, that kills peo- 
ple. Worry keeps the brain excited, the blood 
feverish, the heart working wildly, the nerves 
quivering, the whole machinery of the life in 
unnatural tension, and it is no wonder then that 
people break down. 

Anxiety mars one's work. Nobody can do 



106 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

the best work when fevered by worry. One 
may rush and always be in great haste, and 
may talk about being busy, fuming and sweat- 
ing as if he were doing ten men's duties, and 
yet some quiet person alongside, who is mov- 
ing leisurely and without any anxious haste, 
is probably accomplishing twice as much and 
doing it better. Fluster unfits one for good 
work. 

Anxiety irritates and frets one. A sweet 
spirit is an essential feature of every beautiful 
life. Ungoverned temper is not only unchris- 
tian, but is also most unlovely. There may be a 
difference of taste concerning many matters. 
What one thinks very beautiful in dress or man- 
ner, another may condemn. But no one thinks 
bad temper lovely. Yet worry leads to irrita- 
bility, makes one censorious, querulous, of a 
complaining, repining spirit. One cannot have 
a uniformly sweet spirit, patient, gentle, ami- 
able, without peace in the heart. Peace makes 
the face lovely even in homeliness. It curbs the 
tongue, that it shall speak no hasty, ill-advised, 
impatient words. It gives quiet dignity to all 



THE SECRET OF PEACE. 107 

the movements. Anxiety spoils many a dispo- 
sition and writes lines of unrest and care upon 
many a face which ought to keep lovely into 
old age. 

Then anxiety k sin. It is not a mere un- 
happy thing that wastes the strength, mars the 
work, and hurts the temper ; it is also distrust 
of God. We say we believe in the love of God, 
and then we worry over what he sends — the cir- 
cumstances he appoints for us, the tasks he 
sets for us, the place he assigns us, the path in 
which he leads us, the way he deals with us. 
Worry is sin. 

Hence we are to set it down as a positive 
rule that we are never to be anxious. There 
are no exceptions. We are not to say that our 
case is peculiar ; that even Job would be impa- 
tient if he had our trials ; that even Moses 
would lose his temper if he had our provoca- 
tions ; or that even St. Paul would worry if he 
had our cares. This law of life has no excep- 
tions. "In nothing be anxious/' 

What then shall we do with the things which 
would naturally worry us ? St. Paul tells us. 



108 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

" In nothing be anxious ; but in everything 
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 
let your requests be made known unto God." 
That is, instead of being fretted and dis- 
tracted over the things which we cannot con- 
trol, we are to put them out of our own hands 
into God's by specific prayer, and leave them 
there. No human wisdom can explain the mys- 
teries of life. No human hand can take the 
strange complication of life's events and so 
adjust them that they will make beauty and 
happiness. But there is One to whose wisdom 
all life's mysteries are open and clear. There 
is no confusion in this world as God's eye looks 
upon events. What is keen trial to us to-day 
he sees resulting in blessing and good a little 
while hence. The thousand apparently tangled 
circumstances and events amid which our life 
is moving, are to him threads with which per- 
fect loveliness is being woven. 

We are not to try, therefore, to thrust from 
us the cares and trials that come to us clearly 
as God's will, but are quietly to submit to them. 
It is this restless struggle against the things 



THE SECRET OF PEACE. 109 

we cannot compel out of our life that makes 
such pain and bitterness for so many of us. 
The bird which when put in the cage flies 
against the wires in wild efforts to be free, 
only bruises its body and beats its wings into 
bleeding wounds in unavailing struggle. Far 
wiser is the bird which when put in a cage 
begins to sing. If we would but learn this 
lesson and cheerfully accept the things we 
cannot resist as our Father's will for us, we 
would have peace in our heart and would get a 
blessing out of every trial. 

" Just to be still, though tempests break; 
To know he never would forsake 
The heart he made to be his own ; 
To know he is not King alone, 
But Father — infinite in care 
Of every waif that breathes the air — 
If this be mine, how light the weight 
I bear through changing time's estate. 

Just to be joyous in to-day ; 

To know time's floods — which sweep away 

The gold and precious things of life, 

With desolation's breathings rife — 

Can never touch the arms I hold 

Around my gems, more dear than gold, 



IIO THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Unless he wills — if this I know, 
Fearless my footsteps come and go. 

Just to be still and murmur not ; 
To know he never yet forgot 
The child he led ; to-morrow's care 
To lay on him — my guide — to bear ; 
To see the sunlight of to-day, 
Nor sigh that it may fade away — 
If this my part, my days shall be 
Forecasts of immortality." 

We are told that the peace of God shall guard 
our hearts and thoughts. It is a military figure 
that is suggested. Men sleep in quiet confi- 
dence, in their tents, with enemies all about, 
because waking sentinels keep watch through 
all the night. Our hearts may be quiet and 
confident in any danger because God watches. 
"The Lord is thy keeper." " He that keepeth 
thee shall not slumber." It is not a mere phi- 
losophy of self-control that is taught us. There 
is a keeping not our own. " The peace of God 
shall keep your heart and thoughts." It is pos- 
sible, therefore, for us so to commit all our 
life's sorrows, cares, and alarms to Christ, that 
the divine love shall wrap us around like a 



THE SECRET OF PEACE. Ill 

blessed atmosphere, quieting all fear and filling 
us with holy peace. One asks a question and 
then answers it : — 

" How shall I quiet my heart? How shall I keep it still? 
How shall I hush its tremulous start at tidings of good 

or ill? 
How shall I gather and hold contentment and peace 

and rest, 
Wrapping their sweetness, fold on fold, over my 

troubled breast? 

The Spirit of God is still, and gentle and mild and sweet ; 
What time his omnipotent, glorious will guideth the 

worlds at his feet, 
Controlling all lesser things, this turbulent heart of mine 
He keepeth us under his folded wings in a peace serene 

— divine." 

Is not the lesson worth learning at any cost ? 
It can be learned ; it has been learned. Its one 
secret is perfect submission to the will of God. 
Every resistance or disobedience causes unrest 
and sorrow ; but quiet acceptance, with loving 
confidence and joyous song, will bring the peace 
of God into the soul. 



CHAPTER X. 

IN TIME OP LONELINESS. 

11 He never smiled so sweet before 
Save on the Sea of Sorrows, when the night 
Was saddest on our heart. We followed him 
At other times in sunshine. Summer days 
And moonlight nights he led us over paths 
Bordered with pleasant flowers ; but when his steps 
Were on the mighty waters, when we went 
With trembling hearts through nights of pain and loss 
His smile was sweeter, and his love more dear ; 
And only heaven is better than to walk 
With Christ at midnight over moonless seas." 

Loneliness is one of the most pathetic of all 
human experiences. The yearning for compan- 
ionship is one of the deepest of all yearnings. 
The religion of Christ has something to meet 
every human need ; what is its blessing for 
loneliness ? We may turn to the Master's own 
life for answer to our question. He met all 
the experiences that ever become ours, and he 
found for himself the best there is to be found 

112 



IN TIME OF IONELINESS. 113 

in the divine love to meet each experience. 
Thus he showed us what we may find in our 
times of need and how we may find it. 

Christ's loneliness was one of the most bitter 
elements of his earthly sorrow. All great men 
are solitary men, for there are so few others 
in whom they can find companionship. Christ 
was the greatest man who ever lived on the 
earth. His very greatness of character made 
it impossible for him to have any real compan- 
ionship among men. Besides, those whom he 
came to bless and save, rejected him. "He 
came unto his own, and his own received him 
not." The only human relief to his loneliness 
along the years of his public ministry was in 
the love of his chosen friends, and this was 
most imperfect and unsatisfactory. 

But we know where he ever turned for solace 
and comfort in his experiences. After a day of 
pain and suffering he would climb the moun- 
tain and spend the night in communion with 
his Father, returning in the morning renewed 
and strong for another day of beautiful life. In 
his darkest hour he said that though left alone 



114 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

as to human companionship, he was not alone, 
because his Father was with him. 

The comfort of our Lord's heart in his lone- 
liness is for us too if we are walking in his 
steps. We too have our experiences of loneli- 
ness in this world, and we too may have the 
blessed companionship that shall fill the empti- 
ness. In a certain sense all life is lonely. 
Even with sympathetic companionships all 
about us, there is an inner life which each of 
us lives altogether alone. We must make our 
own choices and decisions. We must meet 
our own questions and answer them ourselves. 
We must fight our own battles, endure our own 
sorrows, carry our own burdens. Friendship 
may be very close and tender, but there is a 
sanctuary of each life into which even the holi- 
est friendship may not enter. 

" Still in each heart of hearts a hidden deep 
Lies, never fathomed by its dearest, best." 

Blessed are they who in loneliness can say, 
"Yet I am not alone, because the Father is 
with me." God's is the only friendship that can 



IN TIME OF LONELINESS. 1 1 5 

really meet all our soul's deep needs and crav- 
ings. Human companionship helps us at a few- 
points ; the divine has its blessing for every 
experience. We never shall be left alone when 
we have Christ. When other helpers fail and 
comforts flee, he will ever stand close beside 
us. When other faces fade out of view his will 
shine out with tender love, pouring its light 
upon us. 

There are special experiences of loneliness in 
every life for which Christ is needed. Youth 
is one of these times. Youth seems happy 
and light-hearted. Companionships swarm all 
about it. But ofttimes a young person feels 
lonely even amid such scenes and friend- 
ships. All life is new to him. As his soul 
awakes a thousand questions arise demand- 
ing answer. He is in a world with a thousand 
paths, and he must choose in which he will 
walk. Everything is mysterious. There are 
perils lurking on all sides. Choices must be 
made. Lessons must be learned. All is new, 
and at every step the voice is heard, " You 
have not passed this way heretofore." This 



Il6 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

loneliness of inexperience, when a young soul 
is taking its earliest steps in life, is one of the 
most trying and painful feelings of all the 
years. If Christ be not then the companion, 
lonely and perilous indeed is the way. But if 
he walks beside the young soul in its inexperi- 
ence all is well. 

There are those who are lonely because they 
are homeless. It is impossible to estimate too 
highly the value and the helpfulness of a true 
home of love. Home is a shelter. Young 
lives nest there and find warmth and protection. 
There is also guidance in a true Christian 
home. Many of life's hardest questions are 
answered by a wise mother or father. Blessed 
is that young man or young woman who can 
take every perplexity, every mystery, every 
doubt or fear, every hunger, home to the 
sacredness of love's sanctuary, and who gets 
there true sympathy, patient counsel, and wise 
guidance. 

Home has also its blessed companionship. 
It is the one place where we are absolutely sure 
of each other and do not need to be on our 



IN TIME OF LONELINESS. 1 17 

guard. Youth has its unspeakable longings, 
its deep hungers, its cravings for tenderness. 
In the true home these are all met. Those 
who have such a home do not realize the half it 
is to them. It is the very shadow of Christ's 
wings over their lives, the very cleft of the 
Rock, the very bosom of divine love. Life's 
loneliness means far less to them while home 
shields them and blesses them with its compan- 
ionships and its gentle, patient, wise, helpful, 
nourishing love. 

But sometimes the home is pulled down over 
youth and its shelter broken up. Few things 
are sadder than homelessness. Loneliness 
begins to be really felt when the home is gone, 
when there is no longer a wise and loving 
mother to give her counsel in life's inexperi- 
ence, to lay her hand on the head in benedic- 
tion, to listen to eager questions and answer 
them, to restrain the impetuous spirit, to quiet 
the soul when it is perturbed and when its 
peace is broken, to lead through perplexing 
paths, to fill the hungry heart with the comfort 
of love when it longs for sympathy and com- 



Il8 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

panionship. Bitter indeed is the sense of lone- 
liness when a young person, used to all that a 
mother's love means, turns away from a mother's 
grave to miss thenceforward the blessings that 
have been so much in the past. Nothing 
earthly will in any full and adequate measure 
compensate for the loss. Other human friend- 
ships may be very sweet, but they will not give 
back home, with its shelter, its affection, its 
trust, its guidance, its soothing, its security. 

Only less lonely is it for the young people 
whom circumstances take away in early years 
from the home where through childhood their 
life has been gently nourished. The home still 
stands, and the love is still there with all its 
blessed warmth, and letters can be sent and 
received, and now and then there can be a 
return for a brief stay in the sacred shelter. 
This mitigates the loss and the loneliness; yet 
even this experience is ofttimes a very sad one. 
Away from home there is always a loss not of 
love only, but also of protection. The young 
people who leave quiet rural homes for life in 
the midst of a great city, plunge into perils 
from which only Christ can shield them. 



IN TIME OF LONELINESS, 1 19 

But blessed is that life which in any earthly 
homelessness can say, " Yet I am not alone, 
because Christ is with me." Blessed is that 
loneliness or homelessness which has Christ to fill 
the emptiness. With Christ unseen yet loved 
and made real to the heart by love and faith, 
even a room in a boarding-house may become a 
home, a sanctuary of peace, a shelter of divine 
love. 

Another time of special loneliness is when 
sorrow strips off the sweet friendships of life. 
Old age is an illustration. Old people are oft- 
times very lonely. Once they were the centre 
of groups of friends and companions who clus- 
tered about them. But the years brought their 
changes. Now the old man stands alone. Still 
the streets are full ; but where are the faces of 
forty, fifty years ago? There is a memory 
of vacant chairs, of marriage altars with the 
unbindings and the separations that followed. 
The old faces are gone. It is young life that 
now fills the home, the street, the church, and 
the old people are lonely because their old 
friends are gone. 



120 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Yet in Christ even old age can say, "I am 
not alone." No changes in life can take him 
away. He is the companion of life's feebleness. 
He loves the old people. There is a special 
promise for them : "Even to old age I am he, 
and even to hoar hairs will I carry you." 
Christian old age is very near to glory. It will 
not be long till the old people reach home to 
stand again amid the circle of loved ones who 
blessed their youth and early years. 

" So long thy power has blest me, sure it still 
Will lead me on 
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till 

The night is gone, 
And with the morn those angel faces smile 
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile." 

But not the old people only are left lonely by 
life's changes ; sorrow touches all ages, and if 
we have not Christ when other friends are taken, 
desolate indeed shall we be. Blessed is that 
life, any life, which, when human friends are 
taken away, finds the friendship of Christ all- 
filling, all-satisfying, and can say, " Yet I am 
not alone, for Christ is with me." 



IN TIME OF LONELINESS. 121 

The loneliest of all human experiences is that 
of dying. We cannot die in clusters, not even 
two and two ; we must die alone. Human hands 
must unclasp ours as we enter the valley of 
shadows. Human faces must fade from our 
vision as we pass into the mists. " I cannot see 
you," said one dying, as the loved ones stood 
about his bed. So it will be with each one of 
us in turn. Human love cannot go beyond the 
edge of the valley. But we need not be alone 
even in the deepest of all loneliness, for if we 
are Christ's we can say, " Yet I am not alone, 
for my Saviour is with me." When human 
hands unclasp, his will clasp ours the more 
firmly. When human loved faces fade out, his 
will shine above us in all its glorious bright- 
ness. When we must creep out of the bosom of 
human affection, it will be only into the clasp 
of the everlasting arms, into the bosom of 
Christ. Death's loneliness will thus be filled 
with divine companionship. 

The inference from all this is our absolute 
need of the friendship and companionship of 
Christ, without which we can only sink away 



122 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

into life's loneliness and perish. One reason, 
no doubt, why our lives are so full of experiences 
of need, is that we may learn to walk with 
Christ. If earth's human companionships satis- 
fied us, and if we never lost them, we might not 
care for Christ's. If earth's homes were perfect, 
and if they never crumbled, we might not grow 
homesick for heaven. 

" There is a mystery in human hearts ; 
And though we be encircled by a host 
Of those who love us well and are beloved, 
To every one of us from time to time 
There comes a sense of utter loneliness. 
Our dearest friend is ' stranger ' to our joy, 
And cannot realize our bitterness. 
* There is not one who really understands, — 
Not one to enter into all I feel ; ' 
Such is the cry of each of us in turn. 
We wander in a ' solitary way,' 
No matter what or where our lot may be ; 
Each heart, mysterious even to itself, 
Must live its inner life in solitude. 

And would you know the reason why this is ? 

It is because the Lord desires our love. 

In every heart he wishes to be first ; 

He therefore keeps the secret key himself, 



IN TIME OF LONELINESS. 1 23 

To open all its chambers, and to bless 

With perfect sympathy and holy peace 

Each solitary soul that comes to him. 

So, when we feel this loneliness, it is 

The voice of Jesus, saying, ' Come to me ; ' 

And every time we are ' not understood, 1 

It is a call for us to come again, 

For Christ alone can satisfy the soul ; 

And those who walk with him from day to day 

Can never have a * solitary way.' 

And when beneath some heavy cross you faint 
And say, * I cannot bear this load alone,' 
You say the truth. Christ made it purposely 
So heavy that you must return to him. 
The bitter grief which 4 no one understands,' 
Conveys a secret message from the King, 
Entreating you to come to him again. 
The Man of Sorrows understands it well ; 
In all points tempted, he can feel with you. 
You cannot come too often or too near. 
The Son of God is infinite in grace ; 
His presence satisfies the longing soul ; 
And those who walk with him from day to day 
Can never have a ' solitary way.' " 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE BLESSEDNESS OP NOT KNOWING. 

" My heart gives thanks for yonder hill 
That makes this valley safe and still ; 
That shuts from sight my onward way, 
And sets a limit to my day ; 
That keeps my thoughts, so tired and weak, 
From seeking what they should not seek. 

It shields me from the day to come, 
And makes the present hour my home." 

Louise Bushnell. 

Some people say they wish they could know 
their future. They are sincere enough ; they 
wish they could. But this would not be a 
blessing. It is better we should not know. It 
would shadow and sadden our lives if we knew 
from the beginning all the trials and sorrows 
we shall have. This was one of the peculiar 
elements of the life of Christ ; he knew what 
lay before him. The cross cast the shadow 
over the manger where he slept his first sleep. 

124 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 1 25 

This foreknowledge made his life sadder than 
if he had gone on unaware of what was await- 
ing him. 

It is one of the mercies of our life that we do 
not know what shall come to us. In the un- 
opened years there may be waiting for us 
trials, disappointments, and losses. None of us 
know what chapters of sorrow will yet be writ- 
ten ere our life-story is finished. Would it be 
a blessing if the veil were lifted to-day, show- 
ing us all, down to the close, that will be pain- 
ful or sad ? 

There are old people now well through life's 
journey. They have had many cares and trials. 
Friends have failed them. Children have been 
taken away. They have had struggles and 
hardships. They have endured sicknesses and 
losses. They have not found what they hoped 
to find in life. Supposing they had known all 
this, seen it all from some lofty spot when they 
set out in sunny youth ; would it have been a 
blessing to them ? Would it have made their 
life a happier, richer, better one ? No ; it would 
have cast a tinge of sadness over it. It would 



126 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

have taken out of it much of that zest and 
interest which have been such inspiration to 
them through all their years. 

If a man had known, for example, that after 
all his toil, pain, struggle, and self-denial, a 
certain great undertaking would fail, he would 
not have begun it. Yet perhaps that very 
labor of years, though it proved in vain at last, 
has been the richest blessing of his life. It 
drew out his soul's energies. It developed his 
strength. It taught him lessons of diligence, 
patience, courage, and hope. It built up in him 
a splendid manhood. The mere earthly results 
of our work in this world are but a means to a 
higher, nobler end, and are of small importance 
in comparison with what our work does in us. 
But if a man had known in advance that noth- 
ing permanent would come out of all his toil, 
economy, and self-denial, he would probably 
have said, " I may as well have an easy time. 
What is the use of working like a slave for 
forty or fifty years, and having only weari- 
ness and emptiness of hand at last ? " Not 
knowing, however, that his efforts would fail 



THE BLESSEDNESS OE NOT KNOWING. 1 27 

in the end, hoping that they would succeed, he 
lived earnestly, laboriously, putting his whole 
soul into them. His work failed, but he did not 
fail. There is no material result to tell men of 
any achievement, but there are imperishable 
results in the man himself, in life, in charac- 
ter, in manhood, — results far nobler than the 
noblest he could have achieved in mere material 
forms. It was better he did not know that all 
would fail, for if he had known it he would 
have missed all this good. 

People say sometimes, in hours of great 
sorrow, that they wish they had never known 
the friend they have now lost. The friendship 
was deep, rich, and tender. It absorbed the 
whole life. It brought sweetest joy. It filled 
the heart during precious years. It was faith- 
ful to the end. There was no stain upon its 
memory. No falseness ever marred its noble- 
ness. But just because the friendship had 
been so pure, so rich, so tender, so unselfish, 
so satisfying, its loss at last was such an over- 
whelming: sorrow that it seemed as if it would 
have been better never to have had it at all. 



128 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Our deepest joys and our bitterest griefs 
grow on the same stalk. To love always in- 
volves suffering, sooner or later, for one or 
other of the friends, for there must some time 
be separation. One must be taken and the 
other left. One must go on alone from a new- 
made grave, 

" Eyes lifted to the icy north, 
Hands crossed, head bowed, heart frozen numb." 

If we knew that ours must be this deep 
anguish and loneliness some time, we might 
be tempted to say, " It is better to go through 
the years unblessed by tender love than to take 
into my life this joy only to lose it yonder, 
and then walk on without it, all the lonelier 
and more desolate for having had it so long. 

But to do this would be to miss rich blessing 
and good. It might indeed be easier in a sense 
for us never to have any friends. It might 
spare us the pain and sense of loss when they 
are taken away from us. But we should miss 
meanwhile all that rich, pure friendships bring 
into our life. Love blesses us with unspeak- 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 1 29 

able blessings. It saves us from ourselves. It 
inspires us for noble living. It transforms our 
dull nature and transfigures it. No depth of 
sorrow that can possibly follow the loss of the 
companionship could overbalance the blessing 
of a holy friendship given to us even for a few 
years. Tennyson says most truly in " In 
Memoriam:" — 

" 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all." 

To have known of the sorrow and loneliness, 
and to have shut one's heart against the friend- 
ship in dread of its loss, would have been to rob 
one's life of its best blessing. Even grief is 
not too great a price to pay for love. Love's 
blessing stays in the life when the beloved one 
is gone. Its influence is permanent. The 
work it does is on the soul's very substance and 
abides forever. Its impression is ineffaceable. 
Tennyson says again : — 

" God gives us love ; something to love 
He lends us ; but when love is grown- 
To ripeness, that on which it throve 
Falls off, and love is left alone." , 



I30 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

So it is better that we do not know the end of 
friendship's stories from the beginning, lest we 
might rob ourselves of love's blessing and good. 

It is better, too, that we should not know the 
time of our death. If we knew it, it would take 
out of our life one of the strongest motives for 
earnest and noble living. If a young man 
knew, for example, that he would live to be 
eighty years old, he would be strongly tempted 
— human nature being what it is — to live 
leisurely, not to be in haste to begin his life- 
work, to postpone important duties, even to 
delay his preparation for death. The fact that 
he does not know how long he will live, 
that he may die even to-morrow, that he 
really has but to-day, and that he must put into 
the swift passing hours the best that he can do, 
acts as a constant pressure upon him in all 
duty. He dare not loiter, or something will be 
omitted that ought to be done and the end may 
find him with his tasks unfinished. 

If, on the other hand, a young man knew 
that he would die at thirty, while it would make 
him intensely earnest, if he were a true-hearted 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 131 

man and eager to crowd his brief days with 
noble living, it would tend to keep out of his 
life-plan all such things as he could not hope to 
finish before the end. Not knowing, however, 
how many years he may live, that possibly he 
may have till old age to work, he begins many 
things which will require scores of years to 
complete. He does not finish them, but he 
starts them. He plants trees which will bear 
iruit long after he is gone to his grave. 

And after all, none of us really finish anything 
in our short life. We only begin things, and 
then leave them for others to take up and carry 
on. It is better, therefore, that we should 
work as for the longest life, though our days be 
but few. Hence it is better we should not 
know the time we are to live. It keeps in our 
heart all the while the element of expectation 
and hope, for we may live to reach fourscore. 
At the same time it holds upon us perpetually 
the pressure of urgency and haste, for any day 
may be our last. 

Not knowing what is before us teaches us 
trust in God. If we could see all our paths 



132 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

open in advance and knew just what is coming, 
what temptations, what rough places to be gone 
over, what heavy burdens to be carried, what 
enemies to be encountered, what duties to be 
done, we should grow self-confident, should try 
to direct our own life, and should not feel the 
need of God's guidance, help, shelter, and wis- 
dom. One of the blessings of not knowing is 
that we must walk by faith ; and nothing could 
be better than this. Self-confidence is the bane 
of Christian life. It is through faith that we 
are saved. 

A young mother holds in her own her baby's 
little hands. She knows that folded up in them 
is the tangled skein of a life's destiny. She 
knows that she must teach those hands to do 
life's duties. A deep sense of responsibility 
and fear fills her heart as she holds these little 
hands in hers and prints passionate kisses upon 
them. 

" How will they build, these little hands ? 
Upon the treacherous, shifting sands, 
Or where the rock eternal stands ? 
And will they fashion strong and true 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 1 33 

The work that they shall find to do ? 
Dear little hands, if but I knew ! 
Could I but see the veiled fate 
Behind your barred and hidden gate ! " 

Thus the mother's heart longs and cries 
as she holds her child's little hands in hers. 
But it is better she should not know what her 
child's life will be. It is better that this should 
lie wholly in God's hands. Her part is only to 
be faithful in the training of her child. She 
must lead its young feet in true and holy paths. 
She must fill its mind with pure thoughts and 
desires and awake in its soul all heavenward 
longings. All the rest she must commit to 
God and leave with him. That is better than 
if she could know all and herself be her child's 
guide. God is better than even the best, wisest, 
and most loving human mother. 

In personal life also, as well as in work for 
others, it is better that we should trust God. 
The walk of faith is always the safest and the 
best of all earth's paths. If we knew what the 
day would bring to us we could not pray in the 
morning as trustingly as when we know only 



134 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

that our times are in God's hands, not knowing 
what they shall be. Not only is there safety in 
thus- leaving all in the divine hands; there is 
also an element of interest in moving ever amid 
surprises, new scenes, new experiences, new 
circumstances. We can say, — 

" It may be that he keeps waiting 

Till the coming of my feet 
Some gift of such rare blessedness, 

Some joy- so strangely sweet 
That my lips can only tremble 

With the thanks they cannot speak. 

So on I go, not knowing; 

I would not if I might ; 
I would rather walk in the dark with God 

Than go alone in the light ; 
I would rather walk with him by faith 

Than walk alone by sight. 

My heart shrinks back from trials 

Which the future may disclose ; 
Yet I never had a sorrow 

But what the dear Lord chose ; 
So I send the coming tears back 

With the whispered word, ' He knows,'" 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 1 35 

Thus all along our earthly life we are shut in 
with God, as it were, in little spaces. We 
must live a day at a time. The mornings are 
little hill-tops from which we can look down 
into the narrow valley of one little day. What 
lies over the next hill we cannot tell. Perhaps 
when we come to it, it may reveal to us a lovely 
garden through which our path shall go on. 
Or it may show us a vale of shadows, or a path 
amid briers. No matter : we have but the one 
little valley of the day now in sight. Evening 
is our horizon. Here in this one little day's en- 
closure we can rest as in a refuge. To-morrow's 
storms and cares cannot touch us. 

We should be thankful that life comes to us 
in such little bits. We can live one day well 
enough. We can carry one day's burdens. 
We can do one day's duties. We can endure one 
day's sorrows. It is a blessing that this is all 
God ever gives us at a time. We should be 
thankful for the nights that cut off from our 
view our to-morrows, so that we cannot even 
see them till they dawn. The little days, nest- 
ling between the nights, like quiet vales between 
the hills, seem so safe and peaceful. 



136 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

" I thank thee, Lord, that thou dost lay 
These near horizons on my way. 
If I could all my journey see, 
There were no chance of mystery, 
No veiled grief, no changes sweet, 
No restful sense of tasks complete. 
I thank thee for the hills, the night, 
For every barrier to my sight, 
For every turn that blinds my eyes 
To coming pain or glad surprise ; 
For every bound thou settest nigh 
To make me look more near, more high ; 
For mysteries too great to know, 
For everything thou dost not show ; 
Upon my limits rests my heart ; 
Its safe horizon, Lord, thou art." 

I am glad I do not have to know the future. 
I am glad I do not have to understand things. 
It is such a restful experience to be able to 
leave all in God's hands. 

There may come times when it will seem to 
us that if we could have known a little of the 
future, it would have saved us much trouble. 
If we had known that this business would turn 
out so badly, we would not have gone into it. 
But the experience has done us good, and we 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF NOT KNOWING. 1 37 

could not have had the lesson without the ex- 
perience. If we had known that this person 
was so dishonorable, we would not have taken 
him as our friend. But one of Christ's lessons 
was learned through a betrayal ; and this brings us 
into fellowship with him at a new point. If we 
had known that a certain journey would have 
made us ill, we would not have taken it. But 
our sickness has been a blessing to us. If we 
had known that we should never see our friend 
again, we would not have parted from him in 
angry or impatient mood. But we have learned 
gentleness and thoughtfulness through our pain, 
and will never forget the lesson. No doubt in 
all such cases there is some reason why it is 
better we did not know. 

We have no responsibility for results. It is 
ours only to be faithful to our duty ; the rest 
is God's. The engineer down in the heart of 
the great steamer does not know whither the 
force he sets free will propel the vessel. It is 
not his place to know. It is his only to obey 
every signal, to start his engine, to quicken, or 
slow, or reverse it, as he is directed. He has 



1 3 8 THE E VER Y-DA Y OF LIFE. 

nothing whatever to do with the vessel's course. 
He sees not an inch of the sea 

It is not our part to guide our life in this 
world, amid its tangled circumstances. It is 
ours just to do our duty. Our Master's hand 
is on the helm. He knows all ; he pilots us. 

We may thank God that we cannot know the 
future, that we do not have to know it. Christ 
knows ; and it is better to go in the dark with 
him than to go alone in the light, choosing our 
own way. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 

" Oh, let me give 
Out of the gifts thou freely givest ; 

Oh, let me live 
With life abundant because thou livest ; 

Oh, make me shine 
In darkest places, for thy light is mine ; 

Oh, let me be 
A faithful witness for thy truth and thee." 

Frances Ridley Haver gal. 

" 1 do sincerely and earnestly want to give 
everything to the Lord, my whole self and all 
that he has given me in trust. But I do wish 
he would show me more definitely what he 
wants me to do. I do not feel at all certain 
that my life up to the present time has been 
what he would have it to be. How much 
easier it would be if he would only say to me 
each day, ' Elise, do this.' " 

Thus writes one who eagerly desires to be 
139 



140 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

altogether Christ's. Yet the desire seems to 
outrun the attainment. The difficulty is in 
knowing what the Master would have his dis- 
ciple to do. She is ready, she believes, to do 
anything, to go anywhere, to take up any duty, 
to render any service, to make any sacrifice ; 
but she cannot hear her Lord's voice telling 
her his will. She longs for direct, definite, 
personal guidance. 

But it is not thus that Christ guides us in 
duty. No pillar of cloud moves in the air 
above our head. No bright angel goes before 
us to show us the way. No divine voice is 
heard giving instructions as to the details of 
our work or service. Yet doubtless there is a 
way in which we may learn at each step what 
Christ would have us do. He would not 
require service of us and yet hide from us 
what that service is. If every one's life is a 
plan of God, it must be possible for us to learn 
the divine plan for our own life. God would 
not expect and require us to fill a certain place 
and do a certain work, and yet not be ready to 
give us clear and sure guidance. There is 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 141 

nothing unreasonable or unjust in our Father's 
requirements. He would never demand any 
duty of us and not be willing to tell us what the 
duty is. We may therefore be sure that he will 
in some way direct us as to what he would have 
us to do. 

How, then, may we learn God's will for us, his 
plan for our life, what he wants us to do ? The 
first condition must always be entire readiness 
to accept his will for our life when it is made 
known. It is not enough to be willing to do 
Christian work. There are many people who 
are quite ready to do certain things in the ser- 
vice of Christ, who are not ready to do any- 
thing he might want them to do. Many of us 
have our little pet projects in Christian work, 
our pleasant pastimes of service for our Mas- 
ter, things we like to do. Into these we enter 
with enthusiasm. They are to our mind. We 
give ourselves to them eagerly and with ardor. 
We suppose that we are thoroughly conse- 
crated to Christ's work because we are so will- 
ing to do these things. Possibly we are, but 
there is a severer test. It is not whether we 



142 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

are ready to do things for Christ which we like 
to do, but whether we are ready to do just as 
heartily anything he may give us to do. 

The heart of consecration is not devotion to 
this or that kind of service for Christ, but de- 
votion to the divine will. It may not be any 
form of activity ; sometimes it is quiet waiting. 
It is not bringing a great many souls to Christ, 
visiting a great many sick or suffering ones, 
attending a great many meetings, talking a 
great deal. Some weary one, shut away in the 
darkness, in the chamber of pain, may be illus- 
trating true consecration far more beautifully 
than those whose hands are fullest of Christian 
activities in the bustling world. Consecration 
is devotion to the will of Christ. It is readi- 
ness to do, not what we want to do in his ser- 
vice, but what he gives us to do. When we 
reach this state, we shall not need to wait long 
to find our work. When the continual prayer 
is, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " the 
answer will soon be given in each case. 

The next condition of consecration, resulting 
from this, is the holding of our life directly 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 143 

and always at the disposal of Christ. Not 
only must we be willing to do his will, what- 
ever it is, but we must do it. This is the 
practical part. The moment Christ wants us 
for any service we must drop everything and 
respond to his call. Our little plans must be 
made always under his eye, as fitting into, and 
as parts of, his perfect plan for our life. This 
is the meaning of the prayer we are taught 
to make continually, "Thy will, not mine, be 
done." We hold everything of our own most 
loosely, knowing that it is not our own, and 
that it may be asked for any moment. We 
make our arrangements and engagements, with 
the consciousness that the Master may have 
other use or other work for us, and that at his 
bidding we must give up our own plan for his. 

We are apt to chafe at interruptions which 
break in upon our own favorite work. We 
anticipate a quiet, unbroken day in some occu- 
pation which we have very much at heart, or 
perhaps in some retirement which we have 
sought in order to obtain needed rest. We 
hope that nothing will spoil our dream for the 



144 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

day. But the first hour is scarcely gone before 
the quiet is broken. Some one calls. The call 
is not one that gives personal pleasure. There 
seems no real necessity for it. Perhaps it is to 
ask a favor or some service which we do not 
see how we can render. Or it may seem even 
more needless and purposeless — a neighbor 
just dropped in to sit awhile, some one with- 
out occupation come to pass away an hour of 
time that hangs heavily. Or you are seeking 
rest and there breaks in upon your quiet a call 
for thought, sympathy, and help which can be 
given only at much cost to yourself. 

In all such cases the old nature in us rises up 
in protest. We do not want to be interrupted. 
We want to have this whole day for the' piece 
of work we are doing, or for the delightful book 
we are reading, or for the little pet plans we 
had made for it. Or we are really very tired 
and need the rest for which we have planned, 
and it does not seem to be our duty to let any- 
thing interrupt our quiet. 

This is the way one voice within us meets 
these demands for time or service. But there 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 1 45 

is another voice which says : "You are not your 
own. You belong to Christ. You have recog- 
nized and also voluntarily accepted his owner- 
ship in you and his absolute right to command 
you and all you have. You gave yourself to him 
this morning and gave him your day. You 
asked him to prosper your plans if they were 
his plans ; if not, to let you know what he had 
for you to do." 

It soon becomes very clear to you that the 
calls which have so disturbed you have some 
connection with your consecration and with 
your morning prayer. The people who called, 
Christ sent to you. Perhaps they need you. 
There may be in one a discouragement which 
you should change to cheer, possibly a despair 
which you should change to hope. With an- 
other it may be an hour of sore temptation, a 
crisis-hour, and the destiny of an immortal soul 
may be decided in a little talk with you. 

Or if there is no such need in any of those 
who come in and spoil your dream of quiet, per- 
haps the person may bring a blessing to you in 
the very discipline which comes in the interrup- 



146 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

tion. God wants to train us to such condition 
of readiness for his will that nothing he sends, 
no call that he makes, shall ever disturb us or 
cause one moment's chafing or murmuring. 
Ofttimes it takes a long while, with many les- 
sons, to bring us to this state of preparedness 
for his will. The more of resistance and chafing 
there is when any bit of God's will breaks into 
our plans, the more need there is for such 
interruptions, until the lesson is well learned. 

Once our Lord himself took his disciples 
apart to rest awhile, since there were so many 
coming and going that they had scarcely time 
to eat. But no sooner had they reached their 
place of resting than the eager people, flocking 
around the shore of the lake, began to gather 
about them with their needs, their sorrows, and 
their sicknesses. But Christ did not murmur 
when his little plan for rest was thus broken in 
upon. He did not resent the coming of the 
throngs nor refuse to receive them. He did 
not say to them that he had come to this quiet 
place for needed rest and they must excuse him. 
He forgot his weariness and gave himself at 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 1 47 

once, without reluctance or the slightest with- 
holding, with all of his heart's loving warmth 
and earnestness, to the serving and helping of 
the people who had so thoughtlessly followed 
him to his retirement. 

At the well of Jacob, too, though so weary 
that he sank down exhausted to wait alone till 
his disciples came with food for his hunger, he 
yet turned instantly to the serving of the poor, 
sinful woman who came to draw water. He 
might have pleaded that he was too tired, but 
he did not. He even spoke of what he had 
done for the woman as the will of his Father. 

From the example of our Master we get our 
lesson. He may follow us into our vacations 
and to our vacation -resorts with fragments of 
his will. He may call us out into the darkness 
and the storm on errands of mercy after we have 
wrought all day and have put on our slippers 
and prepared ourselves for a cosey rest with our 
loved ones around the home lamp. He may 
wake us up out of our sleep by the loud ringing 
of the bell, and send us out at midnight on some 
ministry of kindness. 



I48 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We would seem to have excuse for not listen- 
ing to these calls. It would not appear greatly 
unreasonable if we should say that we are ex- 
hausted and cannot go on these errands. There 
are limits to human strength and endurance. 
Perhaps, too, these people who want us have no 
just claims on us. Besides, why did they not 
send for us at an earlier hour instead of waiting 
till this most unreasonable time ? Or why will 
not to-morrow do ? Then we will be fresh and 
strong and the storm will be over. 

But ordinarily none of these answers will 
quite satisfy the spirit of our consecration. It 
is the will of God that rings our bell and calls 
us out. Somewhere there is a soul that needs 
us, and we dare not shut our ears. A beautiful 
story is told of Francis Xavier. He was en- 
gaged in his missionary work, and hundreds 
kept coming until he was literally worn out. 
" I must have sleep," he said to his servant, " or 
I shall die. No matter who comes, do not dis- 
turb me. I must sleep." Hastening to his 
tent, he left his faithful attendant to watch. In 
a little while, however, the servant saw Xavier's 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 1 49 

white face at the tent-door. Answering his call, 
he saw on his countenance a look of awe, as if 
he had seen a vision. " I made a mistake/' 
said the missionary. " I made a mistake. If a 
little child comes, waken me." There are needs 
to which we dare not deny ourselves. When 
Christ sends the least of his little ones to us for 
any ministry — hungry to be fed, thirsty to re- 
ceive a cup of cold water, in trouble to be helped, 
to refuse to answer the call is to neglect Christ 
himself. 

This true consecration becomes very practi- 
cal. There is no place in it for beautiful theo- 
ries which will not work, for splendid visions 
which will not become hands and feet in 
service. " Consecration meetings," with their 
roll-call and their Scripture verses and their 
pledges and their hymns, are very pleasing to 
God, if — if we go out to prove our sincerity in 
the doing of his will. 

Another condition of consecration is humil- 
ity. It does not usually mean great things, 
conspicuous services, but little lowly things, 
for which we shall probably get neither praise 



150 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

nor thanks. Most of us must be content to 
live commonplace lives. Ninety-nine hun- 
dredths of the work which chiefly blesses the 
world, which makes the bulk of human happi- 
ness, and which most sets forward the kingdom 
of Christ, must always be inconspicuous, along 
the lines of common duties, in home relation- 
ships, in personal association, in neighborhood 
helpfulness. It is in these lowly spheres that 
consecration must prove itself. It is here too 
that the noblest lives of the world have been 
lived. Sir Edwin Arnold has written beauti- 
fully of these obscure heroes : — 

" They have no place in storied page, 

No rest in marble shrine ; 
They have passed and gone with a perished age j 

They died and made no sign. 
But work that will find its wages yet, 
And deeds that their God did not forget, 

Done for their love divine — 
These were the mourners, and these shall be 
The crown of their immortality. 

Oh ! seek them not where sleep the dead — 

Ye shall not find their trace ; 
No graven stone is at their head, 

No green grass hides their face ; 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 151 

But sad and unseen is their silent grave — 
It may be the sand or deep sea wave, 

Or a lonely desert place ; 
For they need no prayers and no mourning bell — 
They were tombed in true hearts that knew them well. 

They healed sick hearts till theirs were broken, 
And dried sad eyes till theirs lost light ; 

We shall know at last by a certain token 
How they fought and fell in the fight. 

Salt tears of sorrow unbeheld, 

Passionate cries unchronicled, 
And silent strifes for the right, — 

Angels shall court them, and earth shall sigh 

That she left her best children to battle and die." 

When we speak of consecrating our lives to 
Christ it is to the common deeds of the com- 
mon days that we must think of turning. Con- 
secration must first be a spirit in us, a spirit of 
love, a life in our hearts which shall flow out to 
every one we desire to bless and help and make 
better. Thackeray tells of one who kept his 
pockets full of acorns, and whenever he saw a 
vacant place in his estate he took out one and 
planted it. In like manner he exhorts his read- 
ers to do with kind words as they go through 



152 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

life, never losing a chance of saying one. " An 
acorn costs nothing, but it may sprout into a 
prodigious bit of timber. ,, To such a life true 
consecration prompts and inspires. It takes 
lowliness of mind in many of us to accept such 
obscure services. We think too often of some 
great things to be given to us to do when we 
devote ourselves to Christ. 

" My soul was stirred ; I prayed : ' Let me 

Do some great work so purely 
To right life's wrongs, that I shall know 

That I have loved thee surely.' 
My lips sent forth their eager cry, 

The while my heart beat faster. 

* For some great deed to prove my love, 

Send me, send me, my Master.' 

From out the silence came a voice 

Saying, * If God thou fearest, 
Rise up and do, thy whole life through, 

The duty that lies nearest. 
The friendly word, the kindly deed, 

Though small the act in seeming, 
Shall in the end unto thy soul 

Prove mightier than thy dreaming. 

* The cup of water to the faint, 

Or rest unto the weary, 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. 1 53 

The light thou givest another life 

Shall make thine own less dreary, 
And boundless realms of faith and love 

Will wait for thy possessing ; 
Not creeds, but deeds, if thou wouldst win 

Unto thy soul a blessing.' " 



These reflections may help us to answer the 
question of the letter at the beginning of this 
chapter. Christ tells us through our various 
relationships what he wants us to do each day, 
each hour. To the little child he gives duty 
through the parents' guidance, command, ex- 
ample, and teaching. In home life all relative 
duties become plain and clear. In our contact 
with friends and neighbors the voice of Christ 
speaks to us continually in the human needs 
that appeal to us, and in the opportunities of 
usefulness that come to us. In our church 
life, also, work is brought to our hand in the 
calls for service. 

True, we cannot do everything that offers. 
There are many things, too, which we could not 
do if we were to try. " To every one his work/' 
according to his gifts. There is wide room for 



1 54 THE E VER Y-DA Y OF LIFE. 

good judgment in choosing the things we can 
do and ought to do. God has given us brains 
to be used. We are to think for ourselves. It 
is very foolish for any one to try to have a hand 
in all manner of good work. " This one thing 
I do," is a motto which it is wise to follow in 
all lines of life. It is usually better that we do 
one thing well than give ten things a touch and 
then leave them. 

The most useful people in any community 
are the plodders who make choice of one class 
of work and devote themselves to it year after 
year. It is better for most of us that we devote 
ourselves to the helping and uplifting of a few 
people than that we scatter our influence over 
hundreds. Then we can make impressions on 
their lives that will last forever. Jesus gave 
his whole public life to twelve men, but he so 
stamped his impress on their lives that they 
went out and moved the world. 

We cannot expect the guidance that little 
children get in finding the duties of our conse- 
cration ; but we shall never lack true guidance 
if only we will follow. One day's work leads to 



WORDS ABOUT CONSECRATION. I 55 

another. One duty opens the way to another. 
We are never shown maps of continents with all 
the course of our life projected on them; but 
we shall be shown always the next duty, and 
then the next. If only we are obedient, there 
shall never come a time when we cannot know 
what our next duty is. One disobedience, how- 
ever, breaks the continuity of the guidance, and 
the thread may be hard to find again. Those 
who follow Christ never walk in darkness. 

There is need of preparation. The life must 
be holy that Christ will employ. The vessel 
must be clean that the King will use. The 
heart must be broken through which God's love 
may flow. Some one gives a consecration prayer : 
" Lord, take me, break me, make me," and tells 
the story of a golden cup which had been made 
out of old gold coins. These had lost the image 
and superscription originally upon them, and 
were then thrown into a melting-pot and wrought 
into a beautiful cup. So ofttimes a human life 
has lost its beauty ; and then the Master takes 
it, breaks it, and makes it over again in form of 
beauty. Then the King will use it. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DUTY OP SPEAKING OUT. 

" In the desert where he lies entombed 
He made a little garden and left there 
Some flowers that but for him had never bloomed.' ' 

No doubt there is a duty of silence. There 
are times when silence is golden. But there is 
also a duty of speech. There are times when 
silence is sin. There are times when it is both 
ungrateful and disloyal to God not to speak of 
his love and goodness, or witness for him before 
men in strong, unequivocal words. 

We ought to speak out the messages given 
us for others. God puts something into the 
heart of every one of his creatures that he 
would have that creature utter. He puts into 
the star a message of light, and you look up 
into the heavens at night and it tells you its 
secret. Who knows what a benediction a star 
may be to the weary traveller who finds his way 
156 



r THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT 1 57 

by it, or to the sick man lying by his window, 
and in his sleeplessness looking up at the glim- 
mering point of light in the calm, deep heavens ? 
God gives to a flower a mission of beauty and 
sweetness, and for its brief life it tells out its 
message to all who can read it. Wordsworth 
says, — 

u To me the meanest flower that blooms can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

Who can count up the good that even a flower 
may do, as it blooms in the garden, or as it is 
carried into a sick-room, or into the cheerless 
chamber of poverty ? 

Especially does God give to every human 
soul a message to deliver. To one it is some 
revealing of science. A great astronomer spoke 
of himself as thinking over God's thoughts 
after him, as he traced out the paths of the 
stars and the laws of the heavens. To the poet 
God gives thoughts of beauty which he is to 
speak to the world, and the world is richer, 
sweeter, and better for hearing his message. 
We do not realize how much we owe to the 



158 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

men and women who along the centuries have 
given forth their songs of hope, cheer, comfort, 
and inspiration. 

To every one of us God gives something that 
he wants us to say to others. We cannot all 
write poems or hymns, or compose books which 
will bless men ; but if we live near the heart of 
Christ, there is not one of us into whose ear 
he will not whisper some fragment of truth, 
some revealing of grace or love, or to whom he 
will not give some experience of comfort in 
sorrow, some new glimpse of glory. Each 
friend of Christ, living close to him, learns 
something from him and of him which no one 
has learned before, which he is to forth-tell to 
the world. 

Each one should speak out therefore his own 
message. If it be only a single word, it will 
yet bless the earth. If only one of the flowers 
that bloom in summer days in the fields and 
gardens had refused to bloom, hiding its little 
gift of beauty, the world would be poorer and 
less lovely. If but one of the myriad stars in 
the heavens had refused to shine, keeping its 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT I 59 

little beam locked in its breast, the nights would 
be a little darker than they are. And every 
human life that fails to hear its message and 
learn its lesson or fails to speak it out, keeping 
it locked in the silence of the heart, leaves this 
earth a little poorer. But every life, even the 
lowliest, that learns of God and then speaks 
out its message, adds something to the world's 
blessing and beauty. 

We ought to speak out our heart's gladness. 
There is something very strange in the tendency 
which seems so common in human lives to hide 
the gladness and tell out the misery. Any one 
who will keep an account of what people he 
meets say to him, will probably find that a large 
proportion of them will say little that is pleas- 
ant and happy and much that is dreary and sad. 
They will tell him of their bodily aches and 
pains and infirmities. They will complain bit- 
terly of the heat if it is warm, or of the chill 
if it is cold. They will speak of the discourage- 
ments in their business, the hardships in their 
occupation, the troubles in their various duties, 
and all the manifold miseries, real or imagined, 



l6o THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

that have fallen to their lot. But they will 
have very little to say of their prosperities, their 
health, their three good meals a day, their 
encouragements, favors, friendships, and mani- 
fold blessings. 

But it is of this latter class of experiences 
that the world ought to hear the most. There 
is no command in the Bible which says we 
should empty the tale of all our woes into 
people's ears. We really do not have so many 
woes as some of us imagine we have. Of course 
everybody has some cares, pains, and losses. 
We cannot live in this world without such 
things. But most of us have at least a hundred 
mercies to one misery. We need cares, as a 
clock needs its weights, to keep our life 
machinery in healthy motion. God makes this 
world a little rough for most of us, to keep us 
from settling down too contentedly in it as our 
home. 

But he does not want us to complain contin- 
ually about the roughnesses that are for our 
good. It is neither loyal nor brave in us to do 
so, and surely it is not beautiful. None of us 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT l6l 

think it beautiful in another when he speaks 
always of his miseries and never of his mercies. 
Then we have no right to add to the world's 
shadows and burdens and pains by unloading our 
worries and frets into every ear we find open. 
It would be a far sweeter service if we would 
speak only of the pleasant things. And there 
always is something pleasant even in the most 
cheerless circumstances, if only we have an eye 
to find it. There is a legend which says that 
once Jesus and his disciples, as they journeyed, 
saw a dead dog lying by the wayside. The 
disciples showed disgust and loathing, but the 
Master said, " What beautiful teeth the creature 
has ! " The legend has its lesson for us. We 
should see the beauty even in loathsomeness. 
Miss Mulock tells of a gentleman and a lady 
passing through a lumber-yard, by a dirty, foul- 
smelling river. The lady said, " How good the 
pine boards smell ! " " Pine boards ! " exclaimed 
her companion. " Just smell this foul river ! " 
" No, thank you," the lady replied ; " I prefer 
to smell the pine boards." She was wiser than 
he. It is far better for us to find the sweetness 



1 62 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

that is in the air than the foulness. It is better 
to talk to others of the smell of pine boards 
than of the heavy odors of stagnant rivers. 

There is a large field of opportunities for 
saying kind and loving words which will do 
good to others. Many people seem too chary 
of words of encouragement. They have the 
kindly thoughts in their heart, but they do not 
utter them. Of course there are things in 
many a breast that had better not be expressed. 
There are silences that are better than speech. 
Some persons indeed boast of saying always 
just what they think. That is very well so 
long as they think only nobly, charitably, gen- 
erously, lovingly. But saying what one thinks 
means ofttimes speaking rashly, impulsively, in 
flashes of anger and bad temper, and then the 
words are not wise nor good. "As well say 
them as think them," says some one. No. 
Thinking harsh or unkind things hurts our- 
selves, but does not yet hurt others. A moment 
later we shall repent of the bitter thoughts, and 
if they have not been spoken we will be most 
thankful that they are not. If they are uttered, 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT. 1 63 

however, they crash like darts into tender 
spirits and we never can withdraw them. 

" Oh, many an arrow will reach the heart 

For which it was never intended, 
If a careless marksman wings the dart, 

And a hurt can never be mended : 
And many a friendship may be lost, 

And many a love-link broken, 
Because of neglect to count the cost 

Of words that are lightly spoken." 

We should never speak harsh, uncharitable, 
hurtful words, which will only give needless 
pain, break hearts, and sunder friendships, and 
which can never be unsaid. It is bad enough 
in ill temper to have even bitter thoughts of 
others, of our friends, of any who bear God's 
image ; but it is far worse to let such thoughts 
find utterance. Then the injury done is irrep- 
arable. 

But we should never fail to speak out the 
kindly thoughts and feelings. Some people 
seem to think that the utterance of compliment- 
ary words, however well deserved, is weak, senti- 
mental, and unworthy. But it is not, if the 
things said are sincere and altogether true. 



164 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Other persons fail to recognize the value of 
cheerful, hopeful words, and do not understand 
that it is worth while to speak them. The truth 
is, however, that words of encouragement, of 
inspiration, of cheer, are better ofttimes than 
angels' visits to those to whom they are spoken. 
We ought not to withhold that which it is in our 
power to give without cost, which will so richly 
bless hungry hearts and weary spirits. 

" If any little word of mine 

May make a life the brighter, 
If any little song of mine 

May make a heart the lighter, 
God help me speak the little word 

And take my bit of singing 
And drop it in some lonely vale, 

To set the echoes ringing." 

Here is a young man in sore temptation. 
He is tangled up with evil associations which 
have thrown their chains about him. He is in 
danger of being swept away. You know it and 
see it all. You are near to him, and your heart 
is full of sympathy with him. You speak to 
some of your friends of his danger, but you do 
not say a word to him. Yet it may be that a 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT 1 65 

true word, the expression of your loving inter- 
est at the right time, might have saved him. 
Unspoken sympathy is little better than indif- 
ference. 

Your neighbor is in sorrow. It is known for 
days and days that a loved one is hovering 
between life and death. Then the crape on the 
door announces that death has conquered and 
that the home is darkened. You want to help, 
but you shrink from intruding upon the sorrow. 
With a heart full of affection, longing to be of 
use, you do nothing. Is there no way by which 
your brotherly love might make your neighbor's 
load a little lighter or his heart a little stronger ? 
Are we not too timid in the presence of others' 
sorrows ? 

God wants us all to be true comforters. The 
priest passed coldly by on the other side when 
he saw the wounded man. The Levite seemed 
to do better, for he drew nigh and looked upon 
the sufferer with a feeling of compassion. But 
his compassion issued only in a sigh, for he too 
passed on without giving any help. The good 
Samaritan alone illustrated love's whole minis- 



1 66 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

try, for his sympathy took shape immediately 
in most practical relief. Sorrow is very sacred, 
and we must enter its sanctuary with reverence ; 
but we must beware that we do not fail in 
affection's duty in the hour when our brother's 
heart is broken. 

Perhaps it is in our homes that the lesson is 
most needed. There is a great deal of love 
there that never finds expression. We keep 
sad silences ofttimes with those who are dear- 
est to us, even when their hearts are crying out 
for words. In many homes that lack rich and 
deep happiness, it is not more love that is 
needed, but the flowing out of the love in little 
words, acts, and expressions. A husband loves 
his wife and would give his life for her ; but 
there are days and days that he never tells her 
so, nor reveals the sweet truth to her by any 
sign or token. The wife loves her husband 
with warm, faithful affection, but she has fallen 
into the habit of making no demonstration, say- 
ing nothing about her love, going through the 
duties of the home life almost as if there were 
no love in her heart. No wonder husbands and 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT. 1 67 

wives drift apart in such homes. Hearts too 
need their daily bread, and starve and die if it 
is withheld from them. 

There are parents who make the same mis- 
take with their children. They love them, but 
they do not reveal their love. They allow it to 
be taken for granted. After infancy passes 
they quietly drop out of their intercourse with 
their children all tenderness, all caresses, and 
marks of fondness. On the first intimation of 
danger of any kind their love reveals itself in 
anxious solicitude and prompt efforts to help ; 
but in the daily life of the home there is no 
show of tenderness. The love is unquestioned, 
but like the vase of ointment unbroken, it gives 
out no perfume. The home life may be free 
from all bitterness, all that is unloving or un- 
kind, and yet it has sore lack. It is not in what 
we do that the secret of the want of happiness 
must be sought, but in what we do not do. 
Mrs. Sangster writes, — 

" It isn't the thing you do, dear, 

It's the thing you've left undone, 
Which gives you a bit of heartache 
At the setting of the sun. 



1 68 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

The tender word forgotten, 

The letter you did not write, 
The flower you might have sent, dear, 

Are your haunting ghosts to-night. 

The stone you might have lifted 

Out of a brother's way, 
The bit of heartsome counsel 

You were hurried too much to say ; 
The loving touch of the hand, dear, 

The gentle and winsome tone, 
That you had no time or thought for, 

With troubles enough of your own. 

The little act of kindness, 

So easily out of mind ; 
Those chances to be angels 

Which every mortal finds — 
They come in night and silence, 

Each chill, reproachful wraith — 
When hope is faint and flagging, 

And a blight has dropped on faith." 

It is not enough to love ; the love must find 
expression. We must let our friends know that 
we care for them. We must do it, too, before 
it is too late. Some people wait till the need 
is past, and then come up with their laggard 
sympathy. When the neighbor is well again, 



THE DUTY OF SPEAKING OUT 1 69 

they call to say how sorry they are he has been 
sick. Would not a kindly inquiry at the door, 
or a few flowers sent to his room, when he was 
ill, have been a fitter and more adequate expres- 
sion of brotherly interest ? When a man with- 
out their help has gotten through his long battle 
with business difficulties or embarrassments, and 
is well on his feet again, friends come with their 
congratulations. Would it not have been better 
if they had proved their care for him in some 
way when he needed strong practical sympathy ? 
The time to show our friendship is when our 
friend is under the shadow of enmity, when evil 
tongues misrepresent him, and not when he has 
gotten vindication and stands honored even by 
strangers. 

There are those, too, who wait till death has 
come before they begin to speak their words 
of appreciation and commendation. There are 
many who say their first truly generous words 
of others beside their coffins. They bring their 
flowers then, although they never gave a flower 
when their friends were living. Many a person 
goes down in defeat, under life's burdens, un- 



I/O THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

helped, uncheered, and then, when the eyes are 
closed and the hands folded, there comes, too 
late, love enough to have turned the tide of 
battle and given victory, had it come a little 
earlier. 

" Delayed till she had ceased to know, 
Delayed till in its vest of snow 

Her loving bosom lay. 
An hour behind the fleeting breath, 
Later by just an hour than death, — 

Oh, lagging yesterday! 

Could she have guessed that it would be ; 
Could but a crier of the glee 

Have climbed the distant hill : 
Had not the bliss so slow a pace — 
Who knows but this surrendered face 

Were undefeated still ? " 

Life is hard for many people, and we have no 
right to withhold any look or word or touch or 
act of love which will lighten the load or cheer 
the heart of any fellow-struggler. The best use 
we can make of our life is to live so that we 
shall be a benediction to every one we meet. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LEARNING BY DOING. 

" The busy fingers fly, the eyes may see 

Only the glancing needle which they hold, 
But all my life is blossoming inwardly, 
And every breath is like a litany ; 

While through each labor like a thread of gold 
Is woven the sweet consciousness of thee ! " 

Susan Coolidge. 

There is a great deal more in life's common 
task-work than we dream. We think of it oft- 
times as the dreariest kind of drudgery. Many 
a man never learns to go to his daily toil with 
hearty enthusiasm. Many a woman never goes 
through her household duties but with a weary 
heart and a feeling of constraint. It is this dul- 
ness of life's common tasks that makes them 
seem so hard. If people loved them and 
took them up with delight, they would be light 
and easy, for love makes anything easy. It is 
the dreariness of this unending plod and grind 

171 



172 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

that wears out so many lives, not the real bur- 
den of it. People are fretted and become dis- 
contented as they must go every day over and 
over the same routine. It seems so idle. Noth- 
ing comes of it. Nothing is built up by all this 
toil, nothing beautiful is made by it. It is 
weaving ever only to have the web unwoven. 

" O trifling tasks so often done, 
Yet ever to be done anew ! 
O cares that come with every sun, 

Morn after morn the long years through ! 
We shrink beneath their paltry sway — 
The irksome calls of every day. 

The restless sense of wasted power, 
The tiresome round of little things, 

Are hard to bear, as hour by hour 
Its tedious iteration brings ; 

Who shall evade, or who delay, 

The small demands of every day ? " 

But is there no better way to look at all this 
dreary work? Is there no heavenly ray that 
may illumine it? Is it merely idle iteration? 
Does nothing come out of it all ? Is it in any 
sense working for Christ ? If we will answer 
these questions in the light of New Testament 



LEARNING BY DOING. 1 73 

teaching we shall see that there is a sense in 
which " drudgery " is indeed " divine/' All 
this task-work our Father sets for us. This 
alone will give it grandeur, if we but realize it. 
" Let us not depreciate earth/' says Lucy Lar- 
com. " There is no atom in it but is alive and 
astir in the all-penetrating splendor of God." 

" Lo ! amid the press, 
The whirl and hum and pressure of my day, 
I hear thy garments sweep, thy seamless dress, 
And close beside my work and weariness 

Discern thy gracious form, not far away, 
But very near, O Lord, to help and bless." 

Besides, this very task-work which to many of 
us seems so dreary is one of God's ways of teach- 
ing us some of the greatest lessons of life. We 
are not in this world merely to do the pieces of 
work, large or small, that are set over against 
our hand. We are here to grow in strength and 
beauty of character. And it is not hard to see 
how this growth may go on continually amid 
life's daily toils and cares. If we are diligent, 
careful, faithful, prompt, accurate, energetic, in 
the doing of the thousand little things of com- 



174 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

mon life, we are building these qualities mean- 
while into our soul's fabric. Thus we are ever 
learning by doing, and growing by doing. There 
is an unseen spiritual building arising within us 
continually as we plod on in our unending tasks. 
Negligence in common duties mars our charac- 
ter. Faithfulness in all work builds beauty into 
the soul. 

If we remember this as we go about our dull 
task-work it will grow bright under our hand. 
Every little fragment of it will appear as a lesson 
which our divine Master has set for us, in the 
learning of which we shall add a new touch to 
the spiritual temple we are building. There is 
a blessing in the doing of even the smallest 
duty. It lifts us a little nearer to God. 

This lesson has a very wide application. Our 
Lord said that he that willeth to do the will of 
God shall know of the teaching. Doing is there- 
fore a great deal more important in life than we 
sometimes think. In times past there has been 
a tendency to exalt believing, not unduly, for 
believing is always important, but to the dis- 
paragement of doing. Even now we are often 



LEARNING BY DOING. 175 

told that being is more important than doing. 
But there can be no noble being without noble 
doing. Character is built up by doing. Ac- 
cording to our Lord's word, knowledge comes 
through doing. We can get to know more of 
our Father's will only by doing what we already 
know. 

We never get to understand the Bible merely 
by studying it. It will not reveal itself to us 
until we begin to do what it teaches. He that 
seeks to obey it shall know it. Many people 
have the impression that there is something oc- 
cult and mysterious about the words of the 
Scriptures. But this impression vanishes if they 
accept the divine teachings and begin to fashion 
their lives according to them. Many Christians 
will readily recall how dim and obscure faith in 
Jesus Christ seemed to them before they be- 
lieved, when they were trying to find the way, 
and then how simple and clear it appeared after 
they had begun to follow the Saviour. 

The same principle is found in other kinds of 
learning besides that of spiritual truth. A pupil 
wants to acquire music. He may get books and 



176 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

a teacher and learn all the principles. But he 
can never become a musician save by practice. 
So one will never become an artist merely by 
studying the rules and principles of art ; he 
must take his brush and paint as he studies. 

It is the same with the Bible. You read a 
command with a promise annexed. You say, 
" I cannot understand that. I cannot see how 
if I do so and so, this shall be the result. " 
While this is your attitude, the truth will not 
become plain to you. But if you accept the 
teaching as a revealing of a fragment of God's 
will for you, and begin to do it, light will break 
from it. As you obey the teaching, you shall 
know. 

Duties seem hard. We think we cannot do 
them at all. The door appears shut before us, 
preventing our progress. But when y?e quietly 
and in childlike faith move forward, the door 
opens. The Israelites lay in their camp on the 
eastern side of the Jordan river. The command 
came to cross over. They struck their tents 
and formed their columns, ready to march. But 
still the river flowed on, with full floods, with 



LEARNING BY DOING. 1 77 

no sign of abatement. They began to move — 
the advance of the host is now only a few steps 
from the brink. Still the muddy water rushes 
on. Shall they turn back ? Or shall they stand 
there on the edge of the river and wait for it 
to pause in its flowing to let them pass through ? 
That is what many people do on the margin of 
life's rivers. But no ; they willed to do God's 
will, and the advance guard of priests, bearing 
the sacred symbol of God's presence, paused 
not, but moved quietly on as though there were 
no river before them. The moment their feet 
touched the water's edge the flood was cut off 
above, and the channel was emptied. This old 
fragment of history has its living lesson. If 
we will to do God's will we shall find the way 
open for our feet. The path of duty is never 
really an obstructed path. 

Daily life is full of points where this lesson 
may find application. One bright morning you 
give yourself anew to Christ. You resolve to 
do his will all the day. You will find the will 
of God not in your Bible only, as you read its 
words, but in many circumstances and experi- 



178 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

ences ; for remember you are learning by prac- 
tice, not merely by theory. Something goes 
wrong at breakfast. Some one says a quick 
word, needless of course, thoughtless perhaps, 
even rude it may be. It hurts, and the color 
flies to your face, the flash of anger to your eye, 
and the unadvised word to the very door of 
your lips. But there is a still, small voice 
which reminds you that you have willed to do 
God's will to-day. It is his will that you should 
keep your heart loving and sweet and not be 
provoked. Do it and you will learn the sweet 
meaning throughout all the day, in the blessing 
that will come to you. 

Many of us find our plans broken into con- 
tinually by what we are apt to call the accidents 
of life. The mothers in the home are inter- 
rupted all day and kept back in their work by 
their children who clamor for attention, for 
nursing, for care. Busy men meet constant 
hindrances which break into their hours and 
interfere with their plans. Who does not many 
a time have his day's beautiful schedule disar- 
ranged by little things that come in, without 



LEARNING BY DOING. 1 79 

announcement, and claim his thought, his time, 
his strength ? Sometimes we may be disposed 
to chafe a little at what seems to be interfer- 
ences with the programme we have mapped out 
for ourselves in the morning. But we should 
remember that we are learning by practice. 
We promised to do God's will all the day, and 
these things are God's will for us. We had 
left no place for doing things for God, and he 
had to force them into our well ordered sched- 
ule. Susan Coolidge has put this thought in 
very striking way in one of her poems — " Inter- 
rupted." The day's plan was made with the 
resolve that nothing should turn the feet aside. 

" But interruptions all day long, 
And little vexing hindrances, 
Each weak, but all together strong, 
Came one by one to fret and tease, 
And balk my purpose, and displease. 

Friendship laid fetters on the noon, 
And fate threw sudden burdens down, 

And hours were short, and strength failed soon, 
And darkness came the day to drown ; 
Hope changed to grief and smile to frown. 



l8o THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Then I said sadly : * All is vain ; 
No use there is in planning aught. 

Labor is wasted once again, 
And wisdom is to folly brought, 
And all the day has gone for naught.' 

Then spoke a voice within my soul : 
* The day was yours, and will was free, 

And self was guide, and self was goal ; 
Each hour was full as hour could be — 
What space was left, my child, for Me? 

1 Where was the moment in your plan 

For work of mine which might not wait — 

The need, the wish of fellow-man, 
The little threads of mutual fate 
Which touch and tangle soon or late ? 

' These " hindrances " which made you fret, 
These " interruptions " one by one, 

They were but sudden tasks I set, 
My errands for your feet to run : 
Will you disdain them, child, or shun ? 

Oh, blind of heart and dull of soul ! 
I only felt, the long day through, 

That I was thwarted of my goal, 
And chafed rebelliously, nor knew 
The Lord had aught for me to do. 



LEARNING B Y DOING. 1 8 1 

Forgive me, Lord, my selfish day, 

Touch my sealed eyes, and bid them wake 

To see thy tasks along the way, 

Thy errands, which my hands may take, 
And do them gladly for thy sake." 

This is the only way God can get some of us 
to do anything for him. We have no time for 
his special work. We leave no little gaps in 
our schedule in which to do little errands for 
him. We crowd our hours so full of things for 
ourselves that we have not a moment left for 
ministries for Christ. The only way he can 
get us to do these things is to press them right 
into the midst of our scheduled hours. 

Here is the lesson : These things that we 
call " interruptions " are little fragments of 
God's will breaking into the midst of the plans 
we had willed for our own pleasure or profit. 
We have set ourselves for the day to do his 
will, and we must not turn any of these inter- 
ruptions away. He knows what he wants us 
to do. Supposing that we are tired, or that our 
own work is waiting, or that we are thwarted of 
our goal, dare we turn away from the service 



1 82 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

which God is asking of us, — some little minis- 
try to a child, some comfort to a sorrowing one, 
some gentle touch to a life that will carry the 
benediction for days, some showing of the path 
to a bewildered soul that knocks at our door 
asking the way, some lightening of the burden 
for one bowed down, — dare we, would we for 
worlds, turn away what God has sent us — 
these heavenly ministries, these tasks that 
angels would leap to do — fiat we may keep 
on with our own poor little earthly tasks ? 

We must never forget, at least, that we are 
learning by doing God's will, and that God's 
will does not all come to us out of a written 
Bible. Some of it comes fresh from God's 
own lips in our life's circumstances. In what- 
ever way it may come, we are to do it, and in 
doing it we will find a blessing. Hard tasks 
and duties are like nuts : they are rough and 
unsightly, and the hull is not easy to break ; 
but when it is broken we find it full of rich 
meat. 

Once Jesus, tired and hungry, sat down by 
an old well to rest, while his disciples went to 



LEARNING BY DOING. 1 83 

the village to buy food. He was too weary to 
go with them ; but while he sat there exhausted, 
resting, a woman came to draw water. Weary 
as he was, he treated her with compassionate 
interest, entering into conversation with her, 
leading to spiritual themes, and saving her 
from her old sinful life. 

That fragment of ministry was his Father's 
will for that hour. To be sure it broke into 
his rest, but he forgot his weariness in blessing 
a sad, lost life. Then when the disciples came 
with the food he was no longer hungry. They 
could not understand it. They thought some 
one must have brought him bread in their 
absence, but he said in explanation, and the 
words reveal a blessed secret of the spiritual 
life, " I have meat to eat that ye know not of 
. . . My meat is to do the will of him that sent 
me." Taking up the duty that came to him, he 
found in the doing of it real food for his life. 
It is always so. Do the duty God sends ; do it 
gladly, lovingly, and you will find a blessing 
wrapped up in it. We get the goodness of 
divine love by doing the divine will. 



184 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Many people complain that they cannot be 
sure of the right path in life. They are con- 
tinually coming to points where duty is uncer- 
tain. The way before them is dark, even close 
up to their feet. The horizon seems to shut 
down like a heavy curtain, or a thick wall, right 
before them. But here, again, this principle 
applies : " If any man willeth to do his will, he 
shall know." We can learn the path of duty 
only by walking in it. There is no promise of 
anything more than this. The word of God is 
a lamp unto our feet ; not a sun to light a hem- 
isphere, but a lamp or a lantern to carry in our 
hand, to give light unto our feet, to show us 
just one little step at a time. If we move on, 
taking the step that lies full in the light, we 
carry the light forward too, and it then shows 
us another step. That is, we learn to know the 
road by walking in it. If we will not take the 
one step that is made clear, we cannot know 
the part of the way that is hidden in the 
shadow. But doing the duty that lies nearest 
will ever bring us to the next duty. Doing we 
shall know. 



LEARNING B Y DOING. 1 8 5 

These are but little fragments of a great 
lesson which has very wide-reaching applica- 
tions. We may get at least the heart of it, 
which is, that, doing our duty as it is made 
clear to us, we shall learn. Do the little of 
God's will you now perceive, and he will reveal 
more and more of it to you. Instead of wonder- 
ing what mystery the long, unopened future 
holds for you, take the task, or the ministry of 
the moment now in sight, and do that. 

God's will is an angel, bearing in his hand a 
little lamp to light you step by step on your 
heavenward way, at last bringing you to the 
door of home. If there are perplexities before 
you, simply begin to do your duty, — the little 
of it that is clear, — and the perplexities will 
vanish. If the task set for you seems impossi- 
ble, still begin the doing of it. It would not be 
a duty and be really impossible. God never 
requires anything he does not intend to help us 
to do. The giving of a duty always implies 
strength to do it. In due time the mountain 
will yield to your faithful strokes. You will 
learn by doing. Life will brighten as you go on. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BENEDICTION OP PATIENCE. 

" wait, impatient heart ! 
As winter waits, her song-birds fled 
And every nestling blossom dead. 

Beyond the purple seas they sing ! 
Beneath soft snows they sleep ! 
They only sleep. Sweet patience keep, 

And wait, as winter waits the spring." 

Patience and passion are near of kin. A 
fragment of etymology will shed light on the 
meaning of the words. Says Crabb, in his 
English synonyms : " Patience comes from the 
active participle to suffer ; while passion comes 
from the passive participle of the same verb ; 
and hence the difference between the two 
names. Patience signifies suffering from an 
active principle, a determination to suffer ; 
while passion signifies what is suffered from 
want of power to prevent the suffering. Pa- 
tience, therefore, is always taken in a good 
sense, and passion always in a bad sense." 



THE BENEDICTION OF PA TIENCE. 1 8? 

Patience, therefore, is the spirit of endur- 
ance, without complaint or bitterness, of what- 
ever things in our life are hard to endure. It 
is a lesson that is hard to learn, but which is 
well worth learning at whatever cost. So im- 
portant is it that our Lord himself said of it : 
"In your patience ye shall win your souls. " 
That is, life is a battle in which we fight for 
our soul. The battle can be won only by 
patience. To fail in this grace is to lose all. 
This suggests how necessary it is that we learn 
the lesson, however hard it may be. Not to 
learn it is to lose the battle of life, and that is 
the losing of the soul. 

In one of St. Paul's epistles is a benediction 
which in the Revised Version reads, " The 
Lord direct your hearts . . . into the patience 
of Christ/' This is a benediction which all of 
us would like to bow our heads low to receive. 
In Christ's own life, patience, like all virtues, 
had its perfection. And his was not a shel- 
tered life, without such trials of patience as we 
must endure, but one exposed to all that made 
it hard for him to live sweetly. He met enmi- 



1 88 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

ties, antagonisms, and uncongenialities at every 
step. Besides, his nature was one that was 
sensitive to all rudeness and pain, so that he 
suffered in his contacts with life far more than 
we do. 

Yet his patience was perfect. " He came 
unto his own, and his own received him not." 
He pressed upon them the gifts of love, but 
they rejected them. Yet he never failed in his 
loving, never grew impatient, never wearied in 
his offers of blessing, never withdrew his gra- 
cious gifts. He stood with his hands out- 
stretched towards his own until they nailed 
those hands back on the cross, and even then 
he let drop out of them, from their very wounds, 
the gifts of redemption for the world. 

His patience appears also in his dealings 
with his own disciples. They were very igno- 
rant and learned their lessons very slowly. 
They tried him at every point by their want of 
faith, their lack of spirituality, and their weak, 
faltering friendship. But he never wearied in 
his love for them nor in his teaching. 

His patience is seen, too, in his treatment of 



THE BENEDICTION OE PATIENCE. 1 89 

the people who pressed about him wherever he 
went, with their clamors for healing. We have 
only to think what a motley mass an oriental 
crowd is, at its best, and then remember that it 
was the very wreckage of misery and wretch- 
edness that came to him, if we would get a 
thought of the wearisomeness of moving day 
after day among these poor sufferers as Jesus 
did. Yet he never showed the slightest impa- 
tience with any of them, however loathsome or 
repulsive, but gave out freely and lovingly of 
the richest and best of his own precious life to 
heal and comfort them, even the vilest and 
most repulsive of them. 

His patience with his enemies is also wonder- 
ful. It was not the patience of weakness ; for 
at any moment he might have summoned 
legions of angels from heaven to strike down 
his opposers. Nor was it the patience of stoi- 
cism that did not care for nor feel the stings 
of hate and persecution ; for never was there 
another life on earth that felt so keenly the 
hurts of human enmity. Nor was it the pa- 
tience of sullenness, such as is sometimes seen 



190 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

in savages, who bear torture in grim, haughty- 
silence. Never did the world see any other 
patience so sweet, so gentle. He prayed for 
his murderers. He gave back gentlest answers 
to most cruel words. His response to the 
world's enmity was the gift of salvation. From 
the cruel wounds made by nail and spear came 
the blood of human redemption. 

We see his patience also in his work. He 
saw very few results from his preaching. He 
was a sower, not a reaper. Multitudes flocked 
after him and heard his words, but went away 
unimpressed. Yet he never lost heart. 

Thus to whatever phase of Christ's wonder- 
ful life we turn, we see sublime patience. He 
was patient in accepting his Father's will, 
patient toward the world's sin and sorrow, 
patient with men's unreasonableness, unchar- 
ity, unkindness, patient with ignorance and 
prejudice, patient in suffering wrong. Marvel- 
lous, indeed, is this quality in our Lord's life. 
Who is not ready to turn the benediction into 
a prayer, saying, " Lord, direct my heart . . . 
into the patience of Christ " ? 



THE BENEDICTION OF PATIENCE. 19 1 

We all need patience. It is one of the rarest 
adornments of character. " Patience," says one, 
" is like the pearl among the gems. By its quiet 
radiance it brightens every human grace and 
adorns every Christian excellence." In the 
work of our life, too, and in our contacts with 
others, patience is essential. We need it in 
our homes. The very closeness and the famili- 
arity of the relations of the lives within our 
own doors make it hard at times for us to pre- 
serve perfect sweetness of spirit. There is 
much undiscipline as yet in most earthly fami- 
lies ! We too easily throw off our reserve and 
our carefulness, and are too apt now and then to 
speak or act disagreeably, unkindly. We assert 
ourselves, and are wilful and exacting. 

It is easy in the frictions that too often are 
felt in our homes to lose patience and speak 
unadvisedly and unkirffrly. Husband and wife 
in their mutual relations do not always exercise 
patience. They seem to forget that love should 
never be ungentle, but should be thoughtful, 
kindly, affectionate in look and word and man- 
ner. Parents fail sometimes in the duty of 



192 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

patience with their children. The children of 
a household, in too many cases, do not live to- 
gether in that lovingness which belongs to the 
ideal Christian home. Many words are spoken 
which show irritation and even bitterness. 
Such words hurt gentle hearts, sometimes irrep- 
arably. But family-life ought to be free from 
all impatience. Wherever else we may fail in 
this gentle spirit, it should not be in our own 
home. Only the gentlest life should have place 
there. We have not long to stay together in 
this world, and we should be patient and gentle 
while we may. 

" The hands are such dear hands ; 
They are so full ; they turn at our demands 
So often ; they reach out, 
With trifles scarcely thought about 
So many times ; they do 
So many things for me ; for you — 
If their fond wills mistake, 
We may well bend, not break. 

They are such fond, frail lips, 

That speak to us. Pray if love strips 

Them of discretion many times, 

Or if they speak too slow, or quick, such crimes 



THE BENEDICTION OF PATIENCE, 1 93 

We may pass by, for we may see 
Days not far off when those small words may be 
Held not as slow or quick, or out of place, but dear, 
Because the lips are no more here. 

They are such dear, familiar feet that go 

Along the path with ours — feet fast or slow, 

And trying to keep pace. If they mistake, 

And tread upon some flower that we would take 

Upon our breast, or bruise some reed, 

Or crush poor hope until it bleeds, 

We may be mute, 

Not turning quickly to impute 

Grave fault ; for they and we 

Have such a little way to go — can be 

Together such a little while along the way, 

We will be patient while we may. 

So many little faults we find. 

We see them, for not blind 

To love. We see them, but if you and I 

Perhaps remember them some by and by, 

They will not be 

Faults then — grave faults — to you and me, 

But just odd ways, mistakes, or even less, 

Remembrances to bless. 

Days change so many things — yes, hours ; 

We see so differently in sun and showers. 

Mistaken words to-night 

May be so cherished by to-morrow's light ! 

We may be patient for we know 

There's such a little way to go." 



194 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We need the patience of Christ also in our 
mingling with others, in our business associa- 
tions and contacts, in our social relations, and 
in all our dealings with our neighbors. Not all 
people are congenial to us in spirit and manner. 
Some want their own way. Some are exacting 
and unreasonable. Some fail to treat us kindly. 
Possibly in some cases the fault may be ours, at 
least in part. Others may think of us as we do 
of them, that it is hard to live peaceably with 
us. However this may be, the patience of 
Christ will teach us to bear sweetly and lovingly 
with even the most unreasonable people. He 
was patient with all, and we are to be like him. 
It is not to the gentle only that we are to show 
this grace ; any one can be patient with loving 
and gentle people, but we are to be kind to the 
froward and the evil. If we are impatient with 
any one, however unworthy or undeserving, we 
fail to be true to the interests of our Master, 
whom we are always to represent. 

We need the patience of Christ in meeting 
the trials of life. We have but to remember 
how quietly he himself endured all wrongs, all 



THE BENEDICTION OF PATIENCE, 1 95 

pain and suffering, to get a vision of a very- 
beautiful ideal of life set by him for our follow- 
ing. The lesson is hard to learn, but the Lord 
can direct our hearts even into this sweetness 
of spirit. He can help us to be silent in the 
time of distress. He can turn our cry of pain 
into a song of submission and joy. He can 
give us this gentle peace, so that even in the 
wildest strifes our heart shall be quiet. 

We need the patience of Christ to prepare 
us for his service. The moment we enter the 
company of his disciples he gives us work to do 
for him. We are sent to find other souls, to 
bind up broken hearts, to comfort sorrow, to 
help lost ones home through the gloom. All 
this work is delicate and important, and we need 
for it the patience as well as the gentleness of 
Christ. It must be done lovingly, in faith, un- 
hurriedly, under the Spirit's guidance. 

The mothers need the lesson that they may 
wisely teach and train their children and not 
hurt their lives by impatience. All who are 
dealing with the young, with inexperience, all 
who work among the ignorant and the lost need 



I96 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

it. Those who would put their hands in any 
way to other lives need a large measure of the 
patience of Christ. We must teach the same 
lessons many times over and over, and if we 
grow impatient we may never see any result. 
If we become vexed with those we are striving 
to help, we hinder and spoil the beauty we are 
seeking to produce in their lives. Nothing but 
patience in the Christian worker fitly represents 
the Master. That is the way he would work. 
He would never show petulance or irritability, 
or any lack of perfect lovingness, in dealing 
with even the most trying life. In no other 
spirit or temper can we do this work for him. 
They are Christ's little ones with whom we are 
dealing as for himself, and we must seek to do 
his work for them as he would do it with those 
gentle hands and that gentle heart of his, if he 
were here. 

We need Christ's patience also in waiting, as 
we work for God. We are in danger, continu- 
ally, in our very interest in others, of speaking 
inopportunely, of trying to hasten our work. 
Eager, loving words, must wait the true time 



THE BENEDICTION OF PATIENCE. 1 97 

for speaking them, else they may do harm. 
There are many who speak too soon to young 
souls, and only close the heart they sought to 
open. Even in our hunger we must not pluck 
the fruit while it is yet unripe. 

How can we learn the lesson ? Some of us 
find it very hard to be patient. Can we ever 
get the gentle grace into our life ? Yes ; 
Christ can teach it to us. 

"He doth not fail 
For thy impatience, but stands by thee still, 
Patient, unfaltering, — till thou too shalt grow 
Patient, — and wouldst not miss the sharpness grown 
To custom, which assures him at thy side, 
Hand to thy hand, and not far off in heaven." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HURTING THE LIVES OP OTHERS. 

" The elm was broken after many years ; 

The great trunk yielded when it seemed most sound ; 

And, while its wreck yet trembled on the ground, 
A curious man, putting aside all fears, 
Found in the wood fragments of broken spears 

A lad had cast there in his round 

Of boyish fun. He thought : ' The strength profound 
Of Nature's life, which every spring uprears 
The tiny bud and cares for each small leaf, 

Nursed well these wounds, the tree grew sturdily.* 

One answered : ' Love's hand, drawing out the steel, 
Had outweighed years in its prompt service brief : 

A weak place in the heart of man and tree 

Leaves he who waits for time such wounds to heal.' " 

Charles N. Sinnett. 

It seems to have been the nurse's fault. 
Perhaps she was only careless. However it 
may have been, the maiming that came to the 
child that day was something he never got 
over. Down along the years we see a man 
lame, so lame that he had to be carried about 



HURTING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. 1 99 

by attendants, — crippled, unable even to walk, 
because that day the nurse tripped and fell 
with the baby. No doubt there are many peo- 
ple continually in the world who carry scars 
and injuries which mar their usefulness and 
cause them suffering or loss, simply through 
the negligence of those who in childhood were 
set as their guardians and protectors. 

But there are other hurts besides bodily 
ones, which come to people's lives through the 
fault of others. There are woundings of chil- 
dren's minds which stunt or cripple them all 
their days, limiting or marring their develop- 
ment and hindering their usefulness. There 
are marrings of character which leave child-life 
distorted, wounded, scarred, deformed, sending 
men and women into the world unfitted for 
duty ; to be a curse, not a blessing ; to do harm, 
not good, to their fellows all their days. There 
are maimings of immortal souls in the cradle, 
in the home, in the school, which leave their 
sad mark on lives for all eternity. 

George MacDonald says, " If I can put one 
touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or 



200 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

woman, I shall feel that I have worked with 
God." That is very beautiful : but suppose it 
be not a touch of rosy sunset, but a touch of 
wounding, of marring, of defiling, that we put 
into a life, — have we not wrought with the 
enemy of souls, in the harming of immortalities ? 

We all know, too, that it is easier to do harm 
than good to other lives. There is a quality in 
the human soul which makes it take more 
readily, and retain more permanently, touches 
of sin than touches of holiness. Among the 
ruins of some old temple there was found a 
slab which bore very faintly and dimly the 
image of the king, and in deep, clear indenta- 
tions the print of a dog's foot. So human 
lives are apt to take less deeply the image of 
the Father's face, and more ineffaceably the 
impressions of evil things. It needs, there- 
fore, in us, infinite carefulness and watchful- 
ness as we walk ever amid other lives, lest by 
some word, or look, or act, or disposition, or 
influence of ours, we hurt them irreparably. 

The lesson touches home-life. It is a sad 
thing if we stumble with our children in our 



HURTING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. 201 

arms, and maim them. It is sad if the harm be 
only in their bodies, making them lame or 
infirm through all their years ; but it is sadder 
still when their characters are marred through 
faulty education or training ; when they are 
sent into life unfitted for its duties, unprepared 
for meeting its responsibilities, only to fail in 
its struggles, because we were negligent in 
our training of them. Saddest of all is it when 
by sinful example, or by the lack of religious 
culture, we maim their souls, wound or scar 
their spiritual natures, and send them, moral 
cripples, into life. Greatest of crimes is the 
hurting of a child's soul. 

But parents are not the only persons who may 
harm the lives of others. There is not a fallen 
life anywhere in the depths of sin and shame 
that once was not innocent and beautiful. 
Somebody whispered the first unholy thought 
in the unguarded ear. Somebody started the 
first suggestion of evil and kindled the first 
wrong desire in the breast. Somebody led the 
unwary feet into the first steps of wandering. 
Somebody first caused Christ's little one to 



202 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

stumble, and after that, through all the years, 
the life was misshapen. There is always a first 
tempter, one who causes the innocent to stum- 
ble. The tempter may go his way, and may 
walk among honorable men with no brand upon 
his brow, with no finger pointed at him, while 
the victim of his tempting moves in weakness 
and sadness toward deeper shame and utter ruin. 
Society is full of such moral tragedies. But 
God does not forget. The hidden things shall 
be brought to light. The maiming or hurting 
of a soul, though no man know now whose the 
sad work is, some day will reveal its own story. 
Its secret will be declared in the glare of noon. 
It is stated that within ten years a certain 
merchant in a great city lost six book-keepers 
by death. He could not understand the strange 
fatality attending these young men. The symp- 
toms were similar in all the cases, and all the 
men finally died of consumption. An investi- 
gation at last convinced the merchant that the 
room in which the book-keepers worked was un- 
healthy. It was a small office in the back part 
of the building, into which no sunlight ever 



HURTING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. 203 

came. The merchant then prepared another 
room, high up in his store, where the sunlight 
streamed in all day, and almost instantly the 
health of his men became better. Uncon- 
sciously he had been committing a sore wrong 
against the lives of his clerks. We may say 
this was only a bodily hurt ; but does God not 
care for our bodies ? Is it no sin to injure the 
health of another, to send men and women down 
their years with broken constitutions, unable for 
the tasks and duties that God assigns to them ? 
Is there not a commandment against murdering 
the body ? 

The time must come when the law of Chris- 
tian love shall assert its sway over all the rela- 
tions of life. Employers must recognize it, and 
must treat every man, woman, and child in their 
service as a child of God. Business must recog- 
nize it, and the Golden Rule must become its 
basis, instead of the hard, soulless, godless, 
grinding law of greed and gain, which yet in too 
many establishments has sway. Men cannot 
afford to get rich by oppressing the hireling in 
his wages, by grinding the poor into the dust, 



204 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

by doing injustice to the least of God's little 
ones. With the New Testament in our hand, 
containing the Sermon on the Mount, the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, and the thir- 
teenth of First Corinthians, we dare not forget 
that all men are brethren, and that he who hurts 
the least or the weakest hurts Christ himself, 
and smites God in the face. There is need for 
very plain teaching all along the line of the 
great burning question of capital and labor. 
Men must learn that money which comes into 
their hands through the slightest wronging or 
harming of another life brings a curse with it. 
Or an employee may be unjust to his employer, 
and the law applies equally to him. There are 
not two gospels, one for capital and another for 
labor, and none are exempt from the law of 
love. 

We may hurt our neighbors in many ways. 
We may do injury to their business, to their 
influence, to their good name. We may treat 
them rudely, unkindly, or we may do them 
harm by neglecting to do the good we owe to 
them. " I was an hungered, and ye gave me no 



HURTING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. 205 

meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink." 
All about us are human needs which are silent 
prayers to us for help. We may shut our 
eyes, if we will, and say it is no affair of ours, 
and these suffering or imperilled ones may go 
down in the current, while we go on in our 
busy life and prosper. But we cannot thus 
get rid of the responsibility. They are our 
brethren, these hurt ones. Christ died for 
them. To pass them by is to pass him by. 
" Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the 
least of these, ye did it not to me." 

Then the lesson has another side. It is not 
enough that we do not hurt the lives of others ; 
we must do the part of Christ in healing the 
hurts which have already been given. Every- 
where they move, — children with pinched 
faces and sad eyes ; young people wounded in 
their souls by sin, victims of evil habits ; lives 
crippled and maimed ; the poor, hurt by man's 
oppression and greed. 

A workman with a gentle heart told re- 
cently, with pathetic detail, how he had once 
saved the life of his canary-bird. The bird had 



206 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

escaped from its cage into the room, and had 
flown against the surface of some boiling 
water. There seemed little hope of saving 
the poor suffering creature. But this kindly- 
man quickly applied soothing remedies, and, 
with womanly gentleness, nursed the bird for 
many weeks, until at last he saw it fully re- 
stored, and heard again its sweet songs. 

That is like Christ, who did not break a 
bruised reed. That is what we should do in 
Christ's name with the hurt lives about us, 
whether hurt by the wrong of others or by 
their own sin. We should pray for gentleness, 
— nothing but gentleness can perform such 
holy ministry. Then we should seek to be 
restorers of lives that are wounded or bruised. 
That is Christlikeness. 

" He hears one's life-blood dripping 
Through the maddest, merriest hour ; 
He knows what sackcloth and ashes hide in the purple of 
power. 

The broken wing of the swallow 
He binds in the middle air." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 

u All like the purchase ; few the price will pay ; 

And this makes friends such miracles below." 

Young. 

" Friendship's best fate is, when it can spend 
A life, a fortune, all to serve a friend." 

Katherine Philips. 

We use the word friend very lightly. We 
talk of our " hosts of friends/' meaning all with 
whom we have common friendly relations, or 
even pleasant acquaintance. We say a person 
is our friend when we know him only in busi- 
ness or socially, when his heart and ours have 
never touched in any real communion. There 
may be nothing amiss in this wide application 
of the word ; but we ought to understand that 
in this use of it its full sacred meaning is not 
even touched. 

To become another's friend in the true sense 
is to take the other into such close, living fel- 

207 



208 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

lowship that his life and ours are knit together 
as one. It is far more than a pleasant compan- 
ionship in bright, sunny hours. It is more 
than an association for mutual interest, profit, 
or enjoyment. A true friendship is entirely 
unselfish. It seeks no benefit or good of its 
own. It loves not for what it may receive, 
but for what it may give. Its aim is "not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister. ,, 

There are many people who take others into 
what they call relations of friendship, but who 
think only selfishly of what these persons may 
be to them. They seek social advancement 
and hope to enter new circles through certain 
friends. Or they aspire to enter some brilliant 
intellectual coterie and seek the entree by form- 
ing a friendly connection with one whose name 
is on the honored list. Or they wish to win busi- 
ness success, and they spare no cost to make 
friends of those who are influential in the 
community and can help them in the achiev- 
ing of their ambition. Or they seek merely 
passing enjoyment, and choose for companion- 
ship one who seems amiable, kindly, congenial, 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 20g 

with a good measure of sweetness and power to 
please and thus minister to their own cravings. 
In all these instances there is nothing but self- 
ishness, not one trace of true affection. To 
apply to them the name of friendship is to 
degrade and desecrate a sacred and holy word. 
The friendship that is true " seeketh not its 
own." 

It costs to be a friend. " For better, for 
worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in 
health," runs the marriage engagement, and 
true marriage is a type of all true friendships. 
When we take a person into our life as a friend 
we do not know what it may cost us to be faith- 
ful to our trust. Misfortune may befall our 
friend, and he may need our help in ways that 
will lay a heavy burden upon us. It may be in 
his business or in his secular affairs that he 
shall suffer. Timely aid may enable him to 
overcome his difficulties and attain to prosper- 
ous circumstances. It is in our power to 
render him the assistance that he needs, with- 
out which he must succumb to failure. It will 
cost us personal inconvenience and trouble to 



2IO THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

do this. But he is our friend. We have taken 
him into our life, thus becoming partner in all 
his affairs. Can we withhold from him the 
help which he needs and which we can give, 
without breaking the holy covenant of friend- 
ship and failing in our sacred obligations to 
him ? 

Or it may be the misfortune of sickness, 
broken health, that falls upon our friend. He 
is no longer able to be helpful to us as he was 
in the days when the compact of friendship 
was first formed. Then he could contribute 
his part in the mutual ministering, giving as 
well as receiving. Then friendship for him 
brought us no care, no anxiety ; exacted from 
us no self-denial, no sacrifice ; laid on us no 
load, no burden. On the other hand, it was 
full of helpfulness. It brought strength to our 
heart by its loving cheer. It was a benediction 
to our life, in its warm inspirations, in its sweet 
comfort, in its satisfying affection. It stood 
beside us in all our times of trial, with full 
sympathy, putting its shoulder under our bur- 
dens, aiding us by its counsel, its encourage- 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 211 

ment. It brought its countless benefits and 
gains. But now in its feebleness and broken- 
ness it can give us no longer this strong help- 
fulness and uplifting. Instead, it has become a 
burden. We must carry the loads alone which 
his friendship so generously shared. He needs 
our help, and can give in return only a weight 
of care. 

For example, a wife becomes an invalid. In 
the early days of her wedded life she was her 
husband's true helpmate, his royal partner in 
all duty, care, toil, and burden-bearing. Her 
friendship brought back far more than it re- 
ceived. But now she can only lie still amid 
the cares and see her husband meet them 
alone. Instead of sharing his burdens, she 
herself has become an added burden which 
he must carry. But his love falters not for a 
moment. He loved her, not for the help she 
was to him, but for her own dear sake. Hence 
his love changes not when she is no longer a 
strong helpmate, but a burden instead, which 
he must carry. His heart only grows tenderer, 
his hand gentler, his spirit braver. He finds 



212 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

even deeper, sweeter joy now in serving her 
than he found before in being served by 
her. 

That is the meaning of true friendship wher- 
ever it exists. It is not based on any helpful- 
ness or service which it must receive as its 
condition. Its source is in the heart itself. Its 
essential desire is to help and serve. It makes 
no nice calculation of so much to be given and 
so much to be received. It stops at no cost 
which faithfulness may entail. It hesitates at 
no self-denial which may be necessary in the 
fulfilment of its duties. It does not complain 
when everything has to be given up. It only 
grows stronger and truer and more constant as 
the demands for giving and serving become 
larger. 

There is another phase of the cost of friend- 
ship which must not be overlooked, — that which 
comes with the revealing of faults and flaws and 
sins. We see persons at first only on the sur- 
face of their life, and we begin to admire them. 
We are attracted to them by elements that win 
our attention. As we associate with them we 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 21 1 

become interested in them. At length our af- 
fection goes out to them, and we call them our 
friends. We walk with them in pleasant com- 
panionship that makes no demands on our un- 
selfishness, and that discloses but little of their 
inner life. We know them as yet only on the 
surface of their character, having no real ac- 
quaintance with the self that is hidden behind 
life's conventionalities. Nothing has occurred 
in the progress of our friendship to bring out 
the things in their disposition which are not 
altogether lovely. 

At length closer intimacy or ruder contacts 
reveal faults. We learn that under the attrac- 
tive exterior which so pleased us there are 
blemishes, spots, flaws, infirmities, which sadly 
disfigure the beauty of the life. We discover 
in them elements of selfishness, untruthfulness, 
deceitfulness, or meanness which pain us. We 
find that they have secret habits which are 
repulsive. There are uncongenial things in 
their disposition, never suspected in the days 
of common social intercourse, which show offen- 
sively in the closer relations of friendship's inti- 



214 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

macy. This is sometimes so inwedded life. 
The longest and freest acquaintance previous to 
marriage reveals only the better side of the life 
of both. But the same is true in greater or less 
degree in all close friendships. 

This is ofttimes a severe test of love. It is 
only as we rise into something of the spirit 
of Christ that we are able to meet this test of 
friendship. He takes us as we are, and does 
not weary of us whatever faults and sins dis- 
cover themselves in us. There is infinite com- 
fort in this for us. We are conscious of our 
unworthiness and of the unloveliness that is in 
our souls. There are things in our lives which 
we would not reveal to the world. Many of us 
have pages in our biography which we would 
not dare to spread out before the eyes of men. 
There are in our inner being feelings, desires, 
longings, cravings, jealousies, motives, which 
we would not feel secure in laying bare to our 
dearest, truest, and most patient and gentle 
friend. Yet Christ knows them all. Nothing 
is hidden, nothing can be hidden, from his eyes. 
To him there is perfect revealing of the inner- 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 2 1 5 

most springs of being. Yet we need not be 
afraid that his friendship for us will change, or 
grow less, or withdraw itself, when he discovers 
in us repulsive things. Mrs. Browning's sonnet 
voices what many of us have felt : — 

" If all the gentlest-hearted friends I know 
Concentred in one heart their gentleness, 
That still grew gentler, till its pulse was less 
For life than pity, — I should yet be slow 
To bring my own heart nakedly below 
The palm of such a friend, that he should press 
Motive, condition, means, appliances, 
My false ideal joy and fickle woe, 
Out full to light and knowledge ; I should fear 
Some plait between the brows, — some rougher chime 
In the free voice. . . . O angels, let your flood 
Of bitter scorn dash on me ! do ye hear 
What / say, who bear calmly all the time 
This everlasting face-to-face with God ? " 

Yet, what we would not reveal to gentlest- 
hearted friend of the innermost things of our 
life, not daring to trust the strongest, truest, 
most compassionate human friendship, lest the 
discovering of our faults, blemishes, and infirmi- 
ties should cost us our friend, Christ knows 



2 1 6 THE E VER Y-DA Y OF LIFE. 

continually, and his eye sees always. Yet he 
loves us, loves unto the uttermost. 

This is the ideal human friendship. It is not 
repelled by the finding of blemishes. Even if 
the friend has fallen into sin, the love yet 
clings, forgiving and seeking his restoration. 
No doubt there are such friendships. A gen- 
tleman had a friend whom through long years 
of intimacy he had learned to love deeply and 
to trust implicitly. A sacred covenant of friend- 
ship had passed between them and had been 
sealed and was regarded as inviolable. One 
evening he found his friend in great distress, 
and, pressing to know the cause, he received at 
last the confession of a sin, or a series of sins, 
involving debasement and dishonor of a very 
grievous kind in the past. The revelation 
almost killed him. After the first shock came 
revulsion. He would thrust his friend from 
him forever. But after a struggle, love tri- 
umphed. There were extenuating circum- 
stances. His friend was weak, and had fallen 
under sore temptation, and was now penitent, 
crushed by a sense of shame and sorrow. The 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 2\*J 

sin was forgiven, condoned, put away forever, 
and the friend restored to the old sacred place. 
From that time their relations were closer than 
ever until the friend died, and since death the 
love is cherished most sacredly. 

This was Christlike friendship. He loved 
his own in spite of all there was in them to 
hinder or check his love. We are apt to com- 
plain if our friends do not return as deep, rich, 
and constant love as we give them. We feel 
hurt at any evidence of the ebbing of love in 
them, when they fail us in some way, when we 
think they have not been altogether faithful 
and unselfish, or when they have been thought- 
less and ungentle toward us. But Christ saw 
in "his own " a very feeble return for his deep 
love for them, a most inadequate requital of all 
his wondrous goodness and grace. They were 
inconstant, weak, unfaithful. They were un- 
gentle. Yet he continued to love them in spite 
of all that he found unbeautiful and unworthy 
in them. 

And this is the friendship he would teach his 
disciples. As he loves us he would have us 



2l8 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

love others. We say men are not worthy of 
such friendship. True, they are not. Neither 
are we worthy of Christ's wondrous love for us. 
But Christ loves us not according to our worthi- 
ness, but according to the riches of his own 
heart. So should it be with our giving of 
friendship ; not as the person deserves, but after 
the measure of our own character. 

" He is not worthy, so you say, 
And hence my love is thrown away. 
You say, Of nature weak and small, 
Giving not much but asking all, 
He hath not grace to value it, 
This love so almost infinite. 
And if or not your words are true, 
'Tis thus and thus I answer you : 

According to my cup I must 

Pour out my wine, although the dust 

Doth drink it up, when it should be 

A living draught perpetually ; 

And I must break my wheaten bread, 

Though none upon its strength are fed. 

Remember that I must give as 
I have to give, not as he has. 
And that my nature, dear, not his, 
The measure of my giving is. 



THE COST OF BEING A FRIEND. 219 

Remember love^ heaven lies within 
The heart that loves ; that it doth win 
From its own great munificence 
Its amplest, truest recompense." 

These are illustrations enough to show what 
it may cost to be a friend. When we receive 
another into this sacred relation, we do not 
know what responsibility we are taking upon 
ourselves, what burdens it may be ours to bear 
in being faithful, what sorrow our love may 
cost us. It is a sacred thing, therefore, to take 
a new friend into our life. We aceept a solemn 
responsibility when we do so. We do not know 
what burdens we may be engaging to carry, 
what sacrifices we may unconsciously be pledg- 
ing ourselves to make, what sorrow may come to 
us through the one to whom we are giving our 
heart's love. We should choose our friends, 
therefore, thoughtfully, wisely, prayerfully ; but 
when we have pledged our love we should be 
faithful whatever the cost may be. 

" If thou'rt my friend, show me the life that sleeps 
Down in thy spirifs deeps ; 

Give all thy heart, the thought within thy thought — 
Nay, IVe already caught 



220 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Its meaning in thine eyes, thy tones. What need 
Of words ? Flowers keep their seed. 

Many there be who call themselves our friends ; 

Yet, ah ! if heaven sends 

One, only one, so mated to our soul, 

To make our half a whole, 

Rich beyond price are we." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 

" Lord, I had chosen another lot, 
But then I had not chosen well ; 
Thy choice, and only thine, was good ; 

No different lot, search heaven or hell, 
Had blessed me, fully understood ; 
None other which thou orderest not." 

Christina Rosetti. 

Many of life's worst dangers are unsus- 
pected. Where we suppose there are good and 
blessing, there is really hidden peril. Disease 
lurks ofttimes in a soft, still, dreamy atmos- 
phere, which we think delicious with its sweet 
odors, while the chill, rough, wintry blast, from 
which we shrink as too severe, comes laden 
with life and health. Most of us think of a 
life of ease, leisure, and luxury as the most 
highly favored lot, one to be envied. We are 
not apt to think of it at least as one of danger. 
Yet there is no doubt that a life of rugged toil, 

221 



222 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

hardship, and self-denial, which we look upon 
as almost a misfortune, is far safer than one 
of ease. 

It is said that there was laid one morning 
on the minister's pulpit a little folded paper 
which, when opened, contained the words, 
"The prayers of this congregation are re- 
quested for a man who is growing rich. ,, It 
certainly seemed a strange request for prayer. 
If it had been for a man who through misfor- 
tune or calamity had become suddenly poor ; or 
for a man who was suffering in some great 
adversity ; or for one who was in sorrow and 
distress, who had met with sore loss or bereave- 
ment, every heart would at once have felt 
deep sympathy. Such experiences as these are 
thought to be trying and perilous ones, in which 
men need special grace. We instinctively pray 
for those who are in any trouble. We think 
these need our prayers. We regard such con- 
ditions as fraught with danger. But to ask 
prayers for a man who was growing rich, no 
doubt to many people in the congregation 
seemed incongruous. Was he not indeed spe- 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 223 

cially favored ? Was he not receiving peculiar 
blessing ? Should it not rather have been a re- 
quest for thanksgiving for this man's success ? 

Yet when we open our Bible we find that the 
experience of growing rich is indeed set down 
as one full of spiritual peril. It was Jesus who 
said, " How hardly shall they that have riches 
enter into the kingdom of God ! " And St. 
Paul said, " They that will be rich fall into 
temptation and a snare, and into many foolish 
and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruc- 
tion and perdition. For the love of money is 
a root of all evil." There is no doubt that 
when a Christian is prospering and growing 
rich is indeed a time when he needs the prayers 
of God's people, whether they are requested 
and offered for him or not. 

True, this is an experience which but few 
people are known ever to have dreaded. It is 
not often that men are heard to say that they 
are afraid to get rich. It is not the popular 
impression that this condition is one in which 
danger lurks. Yet thousands of souls have 
been lost in the valley of gold. Countless 



224 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

men have buried their manhood in the fabrics 
of earthly prosperity which their hands have 
reared. Many a man's envied fortune is in 
Heaven's sight but the splendid mausoleum of 
his soul. We do indeed need the prayers of 
God's people if we are growing rich, that our 
hearts may be kept warm and soft ; that the 
fires may not be suffered to go out on the 
secret altar ; that we may continue humble and 
simple with all divine simplicity ; that we may 
be held ever near to the heart of Christ, and 
that we may be sheltered by the love of God 
from all the insidious dangers and hurtful in- 
fluences that belong to the experience of grow- 
ing rich. 

Another kindred condition which, according 
to the Scriptures, hides an unsuspected peril, is 
one of unbroken prosperity. " Because they 
have no changes ; therefore they fear not God." 
Those who are thus described are free from 
trouble. They do not suffer from adversity, 
from misfortune, from losses, from disappoint- 
ments. They move along, year after year, with- 
out any breaks in their human happiness. 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 225 

It is not usual that such an experience 
as this is regarded as one of danger. Indeed, 
we naturally consider such persons peculiarly 
favored. For example, here is a home which 
has gone on for a long time without saddening 
changes. Business has been prosperous, and 
the circumstances of the household have be- 
come more and more easy. Additions have 
been made to the comforts and luxuries en- 
joyed in the home. There have been no long, 
serious illnesses, causing pain and anxiety, and 
draining the resources of the family. There 
have been no deaths, breaking the happy circle 
of loved ones. 

No one naturally looks upon such a house- 
hold as in any peculiar danger. The neighbors 
do not have special prayer requested for it in 
the church. Friends do not feel distressed 
about its condition. Yet there is no doubt that 
insidious moral dangers do lurk in such an 
experience of unbroken prosperity. Ofttimes 
it is true that God has less and less welcome in 
such a home. The fires burn low and then go 
out upon the altar. The voice of prayer dies 



226 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

out of the home. Christ is lost out of the 
household life. And beneath the bright earthly- 
prosperity the angels see spiritual death. 

The same is true of individual life. Un- 
broken worldly prosperity is the bane of spirit- 
ual good. For one thing, it hinders growth 
in knowledge and experience. There are truths 
that can be learned better in darkness than in 
light. We should never see the stars if there 
were no night to blot out for the time the glare 
of the day. And there are truths in the Bible 
which are perhaps never learned in the bright- 
ness of human joy. There are divine promises 
which by their very nature are invisible in the 
noonday of gladness, hiding away like stars in 
the light, and revealing themselves only when 
it grows dark around us. The deeper, richer 
meaning of many a word of Scripture is 
learned only amid life's painful changes. 

There are also developments in spiritual 
growth which cannot come in time of un- 
broken prosperity. The artist was trying to 
improve on a dead mother's picture. But the 
son said, "No; don't takeout the lines; just 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 22/ 

leave them, every one. It wouldn't be my 
mother if all the lines were gone." It was 
well enough, he said, for young people who 
had never known a care to have faces free from 
wrinkles ; but when one has lived seventy years 
of love and service and self-forgetfulness, it 
would be like trying to cover up the tracks of 
one's realest life to take out the marks. The 
very beauty of that old face was in the wrinkles 
and the lines which told of what her brave heart 
and strong hands had done for love's sake. 
There is a blessing in such a life. But in the 
life of ease and luxury which many a woman 
lives, there hide sore perils. 

Another of the unsuspected perils of "no 
changes " is in the lessening of dependence 
upon God. While all things go well with us, 
and there are no breaks in the flow of favors, 
we are apt to forget that all our good gifts 
come from our Father's hand. It is a sad hour 
in any life when consciousness of the need of 
God fades out of it. It seems pleasant to be 
able to go on, making plans of our own, and 
carrying them out without check or defeat. 



228 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We like to be victorious. We like to say that 
we are master of circumstances, that we make 
all things serve us, that we turn obstacles into 
stepping-stones, climbing continually upward 
upon them. But a little thought will show the 
peril that hides in this having always one's 
own way. It is not our own will, but God's, 
that leads to perfect character and to blessed- 
ness. Unless, therefore, we are doing always 
God's will, filling out his plan for our life, the 
unbrokenness of prosperity is not an unmixed 
good. 

Most of us need to be baffled ofttimes in our 
schemes, to be defeated in our projects, to have 
our plans fail, to be compelled to yield to a 
stronger will. In no other way can the sense 
of dependence and of obligation be kept warm 
in the heart. If we always get our own way, 
we are apt, being human, to grow wilful, proud, 
and rebellious. Quiet trust in God and un- 
swerving obedience and submission to his will 
can be learned at least by most of us only 
through long discipline and much thwarting 
of our own will. It is a sore misfortune to 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 229 

any of us if in having our own way we forget 
God and cease to love and follow Christ. Says 
Archdeacon Farrar — and we would better read 
the words twice : "God's judgments — it may be 
the very sternest and most irremediable of 
them — come, many a time, in the guise, not of 
affliction, but of immense earthly prosperity 
and ease." 

Another unsuspected peril of prosperity lies 
in its easy circumstances, which make toil and 
severe exertion unnecessary. It is the young 
who are most exposed to this danger. They 
are not required to work to provide for them- 
selves. All that they need comes to them 
without effort of their own. Such young peo- 
ple are envied by those of their companions 
and neighbors who have to work hard to earn 
their own bread and to win whatever opportuni- 
ties for improvement they may gain. The lat- 
ter do not suspect that there is any peril 
lurking in the easy condition of those they 
envy. They suppose it is in their own condi- 
tion that the disadvantages lie, in their poverty 
and hardship, and in the necessity in their 



23O THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

life for pinching economy and unceasing toil. 
They do not dream that theirs is really, the 
safer condition, that there is a blessing in work 
and self-denial and care, and that there is always 
danger in ease and luxury. 

The story of the outcome of life shows that 
early disadvantages, instead of being a hinder- 
ance to the development of what is best in 
manhood, are helpful and stimulating. Most 
people are naturally indolent, indisposed to 
exertion, needing to be impelled to it by the 
pressure of necessity. No greater blessing can 
come to young people than to be compelled to 
endure hardship, to bear the yoke in their 
youth, to have their exacting tasks to perform, 
their burdens to carry, their responsibilities to 
meet, their own way to make. 

Another hidden peril of continuous prosperity 
is the dropping of heaven out of our life-plan. 
The years pass without break, and all things go 
on well and prosperously, until at length we 
begin to grow content with earth, and lose our 
hunger, our homesickness, for the city which 
hath foundations. Spiritual things begin to 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 23 1 

have less and less interest for us and power over 
us. We grow materialistic, if not in our creed, 
yet in our life. Our souls begin to cleave to 
the dust, no longer flying aloft like the eagle, 
but grovelling like the worm. 

This is a most serious peril. A picture which 
has no sky in it is without the highest beauty. 
" It is the horizon that gives dignity to the fore- 
ground/' A life without sky in it is most un- 
worthy and incomplete. A man who sees only 
bonds and stocks and deeds, bales of goods and 
blocks of houses, stores and factories and 
machinery and chimney tops, with no gleams 
above and beyond all these, of stars and blue 
skies and a Heavenly Father's face, is not living 
as an immortal being should live. There is no 
sky in his vision of life. This world is very 
beautiful in its place, and God means us to 
enjoy it and do faithful, earnest, and beautiful 
work in it ; but it is only one little part of our 
Father's house. When in our thinking, plan- 
ning, and doing we do not look beyond this 
world, we are not living worthily. When 
we lose the sky out of our life-vision the glory 



232 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

fades from it. The only secret of spiritual 
safety and good in prosperous times is in keep- 
ing the eye fixed on heaven. 

These are a few illustrations of the truth that 
the best things of life are ofttimes found in con- 
ditions that are not thought to be kindly or con- 
genial, while in conditions regarded by men as 
exceptionally favorable and desirable there often 
lurk subtle perils to life's highest good. This 
truth lets in strong light upon some of God's 
ways with his people. He does not allow them 
to be hurt, even by kindness. He breaks the 
prosperity, that its bane may not leave poison 
in our lives. He gives us changes, that we may 
not forget him, but that the consciousness of 
our dependence upon him may never fade out. 
He thwarts us when we would let our own folly 
rule us, and baffles us when our selfish ambitions 
would only work our ruin. He breaks into our 
plans and schemes with the resistless require- 
ments of his own will, to save us from the wil- 
fulness which would destroy us. He lets us 
have hardship and toil, that our lives may be 
disciplined into strength and energy. 



OUR UNSUSPECTED PERILS. 233 

These are not pleasant interferences, for they 
break into our cherished hopes, and cut oft- 
times into our very heart ; but they are blessings 
which some day in the clearer light of the future 
we shall recognize and for which we shall give 
thanks. Our heart shall then sing : — 

" Lord, for the erring thought 
Not into evil wrought ; 
Lord, for the wicked will, 
Betrayed and baffled still ; 
For the heart from itself kept, 
Our thanksgiving accept. 

For ignorant hopes that were 
Broken to our blind prayer ; 
For pain, death, sorrow sent 
Unto our chastisement ; 
For all loss of seeming good, 
Quicken our gratitude." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 

" Put any burden upon me. only sustain me. 
Send me anywhere, only go with me. 
Sever any tie but the one that binds me 
To thy service and to thy heart." 

Fly-leaf, Miss Brighani's Bible. 

We all have our burdens. Of course they are 
not the same in all of us. Some are more evi- 
dent than others. There are people whose bur- 
dens we all see. These get our compassion and 
our sympathy. We come up to them with love's 
warmth and help. There are others, however, 
whose burdens are not visible or apparent. 
These seem to us to have no trouble, no 
struggle, no load to carry. We envy their lot. 
But probably if we knew all about their condi- 
tion that the angels know, our .envy would 
change to sympathy. The burdens that the 
world cannot see are often the heaviest. The 
sorrows that wear no weeds of mourning, and 

234 



THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 235 

close no shutters, and hang no crape on the 
door-bell, are ofttimes the bitterest and the 
hardest to endure. 

It is not wise for us to think that our load is 
greater than our neighbor's ; perhaps his is 
greater than ours, although to us he seems to 
have none at all. We sometimes wish we 
might change places with some other persons 
we know. We imagine our life would be a 
great deal easier if we could do this, and that 
we could live more sweetly and beautifully than 
we do, or more usefully and helpfully. But 
most likely we are mistaken. If we could 
change places with any one, the one of all we 
know who seems to have the most favored lot ; 
if we could take this person's place, with all 
its conditions, its circumstances, its cares, its 
responsibilities, there is little doubt that we 
should quickly cry out to God to give us back 
our own old place and our own old burdens. It 
is because we do not know all, that we think our 
neighbor's load lighter and more easily carried 
than our own. We all have our own burdens. 

There are three Bible words about the bear- 



236 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

ing of burdens. One tells us that " every man 
shall bear his own burden." There are burdens 
which no one can carry for us, not even Christ, 
and which no one can share with us ; we must 
carry them ourselves alone. This is true in a 
very real sense of life itself, of duty, of personal 
responsibility. No one can live your life for 
you. Friends may help you by encouragement, 
by sympathy, by cheer, by affection's warm 
inspirations, by counsel, by guidance ; but after 
all, in the innermost meaning of your life, you 
must live it yourself. No one can make your 
choices for you ; you must make them for your- 
self. No one can have faith in God for you. 
No one can believe in Christ for you. No one 
can meet the obligations of the moral law for 
you. No one but yourself can get your sins 
forgiven. No one can do your duty for you. 
No one can meet your responsibility for you. 
A thousand other people all about you may be 
faithful to their trust ; but, if you fail in faith- 
fulness, their faithfulness will not be of any 
avail for you. There is no vicariousness of this 
kind in life. You must live your own life. 



THE BEARING OE OUR BURDEN. 237 

No one can come up in loving interest and 
unselfishly take your load and carry it for you. 
A friend may be willing enough to do it, but it 
is simply impossible. David would have died 
for Absalom ; he loved his erring son well 
enough to do it, but he could not do it. " The 
soul that sinneth, it shall die." Many a mother 
would willingly take her child's burden of pain 
as she sees its anguish, but she cannot do it. 
There is a burden which every one must carry 
for himself. 

Then there is a second Bible word which 
tells us that we should "bear one another's bur- 
dens." So there are burdens in the carrying of 
which others can help us. No one can suffer 
for us, but true human friendship can put 
strength into our hearts to make us better able 
to endure our own sufferings. No one can do our 
duty for us, but human sympathy can nerve us 
for greater faithfulness and heroism in duty. 
Sympathy does not take away the pain, nor 
remove the sorrow, nor give back our dead, nor 
lighten the load ; but it gives companionship, 
puts another shoulder under the burden. 



238 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE, 

It is a great thing to have brotherly help in 
life. We all need each other. Not one of us 
could get on without others to share his loads. 
We do not begin to live truly until we begin to 
put of our own strength into the hearts of oth- 
ers. We should notice that " Bear ye one 
another's burdens " is called " the law of 
Christ." We begin to become like Christ only 
when we begin to be of use, when we begin to 
help others, to make life a little easier for them, 
to give them something of our own strength in 
their weakness, something of our joy in their 
sorrow. Even the smallest ministries of unself- 
ish helpfulness redeem a life from utter earth- 
liness. Says Emily Dickinson : — 

" If I can stop one heart from breaking, 

I shall not live in vain ; 
If I can ease one life the aching, 

Or cool one pain, 
Or help one fainting robin 
Unto his nest again, 
I shall not live in vain." 

The third Bible word about burdens is, "Cast 
thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain 



THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 239 

thee." There are burdens we must carry our- 
selves. There are others which our friends 
may help us to carry. Then there are those 
which we can cast only upon God. 

This promise discloses special preciousness 
when we study it closely. In the margin of 
our Common Version we find the word " gift " 
as an alternative reading for " burden." Then 
in the Revised Version the marginal reading is, 
" That he hath given thee." "Cast that he 
hath given thee upon the Lord." 

" That he hath given thee." It may be duty. 
Ofttimes the burden of duty is heavy. It is 
heavy with fathers, who must provide for their 
families, and hold and fill their places in the 
world's busy life. It is heavy with mothers, 
who have the home-care in their hands, with 
the training of their children. It is heavy with 
those that have large business interests in- 
trusted to them, which they must manage 
wisely and faithfully. It is heavy with the 
minister who watches for souls. Duty is always 
enough to fill heart and hand, and sometimes it 
seems a greater burden than can be borne. 



24O THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

But it is " that he hath given thee," and there- 
fore it may be cast upon God. He will help us 
in it, and then, we know it comes only for one 
little day at a time. 

" Charge not thyself with the weight of a year, 
Child of the Master, faithful and dear — 
Choose not the cross for the coming week ; 
For that is more than He bids thee seek. 

Bend not thine arms for to-morrow's load ; 
Thou may'st leave that to thy gracious God. 

* Daily,' only, he saith to thee, 

* Take up thy cross and follow me. 1 " 

It may be struggle. Life is not easy for any 
of us. Every day is a prolonged conflict. We 
desire to live right ; but there is an old law in 
our members, a law of sin, which contests every 
holy advance. We want to live lovingly, but 
the natural heart's bitterness keeps breaking 
out in us continually, in bad tempers, in ugly 
dispositions, in envies, jealousies, selfishnesses, 
and all hateful things. We wish to live purely; 
but the dark streams of lust ever well up out of 
the deep, black fountains of our being, staining 
the white flowers that Christ has planted in our 



THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 24 1 

life's garden. Thus the days are full of struggle 
and conflict, and sometimes we feel that there 
is no use trying to be good. Yet this burden 
is " that he hath given thee," and therefore we 
may cast it upon God. 

Or sorrow may be the burden. God has no 
children without sorrow, and in many cases the 
load seems too heavy to be borne ; but again it 
is "that he hath given thee," and we may lay 
the burden on him who is mighty. 

Or your lot in life may be your burden. It 
is uncongenial. The circumstances are un- 
kindly. It seems to you impossible to live 
lovingly, to grow up into beauty, and to ripen 
into Christlikeness in your environment. But 
again it is " that he hath given thee." God 
planted you just where you are, and when he 
did it he knew it was the place in which you 
could grow best into noble character. He 
gives you this burden of environment, and you 
may cast it again upon him. Says Mr. Long- 
fellow : " The every-day cares and duties, which 
men call drudgery, are the weights and counter- 
poises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum 



242 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

a true vibration and its hands a regular motion ; 
and when they cease to hang from the wheels, 
the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no 
longer move, the clock stands still." 

Our burden, whatever it is, is God's "gift," 
and has a divine blessing in it for us, if we 
take it up in faith, in love. "That he hath 
given " we may always bring to him again, 
seeking his help in bearing it for him. 



" Thy burden is God's gift, 
And it will make the bearer calm and strong ; 
Yet, lest it press too heavily and long, 

He says, * Cast it on me, 

And it shall easy be.' 

And those who heed his voice, 
And seek to give it back in trustful prayer, 
Have quiet hearts that never can despair, 

And hope lights up the way 

Upon the darkest day. 

It is the lonely load 

That crushes out the light and life of heaven ; 

But borne with him, the soul restored, forgiven, 
Sings out through all the days 
Her joy and God's high praise." 



THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 243 

We need to notice also the precise form of 
the promise. It is not that the burden shall 
be lifted away from our shoulder, or that it 
shall be borne for us, but that we shall be 
sustained in carrying it ourselves. If it is 
God's gift, it is his will that we should keep it, 
at least for the time. There is some blessing 
in it for us, and it would not be kindness to us 
for God to take it away, even at our earnest 
pleading. It is part of our life, and is essential 
to our best growth. This is true of duty ; 
however hard it is, to relieve us of it would be 
to rob us of the opportunity for reaching larger 
usefulness. It is true of struggle ; all nobleness 
and strength of character come out of conflict. 
It is true of suffering ; it is God's cleansing fire, 
and to miss it would be a sore loss to us. 

Human love, in its short-sightedness, often 
seeks to lift away the burdens that seem heavy ; 
but this is not God's way. He bids us keep 
our load, and then he gives us grace to bear it. 
He does not, every time we groan under a 
burden, run up to us and lift it away. This is 
often our way, but it is never God's. 



244 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

Parents ofttimes think they are showing 
deep and true affection for their children when 
they make their tasks and duties seem easy for 
them ; but really they may be doing them 
irreparable harm, dwarfing their life and mar- 
ring their future. So all tender friendship is in 
danger of overhelping in the lifting away of 
loads, taking hindrances out of the way, when 
it would help far more wisely by letting God's 
arrangement of burdens alone. That is not 
the greatest kindness to us which seeks to 
make life easy as possible to us, but that which 
inspires us to do our best, and so to make 
something of us. Not a good time, but a God- 
like character, is the only true aim for a life. 
Hence, while God never fails us in need, he 
loves us too well to relieve us of weights which 
are essential to our best growth and to the 
largest fruitfulness of our life. He does not 
take the load from our shoulder, but instead he 
puts strength in us to enable us to carry the 
burden and thus grow strong. 

This is the secret of the peace of many a 
sick-room, where one sees always a smile on 



THE BEARING OF OUR BURDEN. 245 

the face of the weary sufferer. The pain is not 
taken away, but the power of Christ is given, 
and the suffering is endured with patience. 
It is the secret of the deep, quiet joy we see 
ofttimes in the home of sorrow. The grief is 
crushing; but God's blessed comfort comes in 
gentle whispers, and the mourner rejoices. 
The grief is not taken away. The dead is not 
restored. But the divine love comes into the 
heart, making it strong to accept the sorrow 
and say, " Thy will be done." 

" Nothing that hour was altered ; 

I had still the weight of care ; 
But I bore it now with gladness 

That comes from answered prayer. 
Not a grief the soul can fetter, 

Nor cloud its vision when 
The dear Lord gives the spirit 

To breathe to his will, Amen." 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP. 

" I feel that I shall stand 
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before." 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

The power of life over life is something al- 
most startling. There have been single looks 
of an eye which have changed a destiny. 
There have been meetings of only a moment, 
which have left impressions for life, for eter- 
nity. No one of us can understand that mys- 
terious thing we call influence. We read of 
our blessed Lord that virtue went out of him 
and healed the timid woman who came behind 
him in the crowd and touched the hem of his 
garment ; again, when the throng surged about 
him and sought to touch him, that virtue went 

246 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP, 247 

out of him and healed them all. Of course 
there never was another such life as Christ's ; 
yet out of every one of us continually virtue 
goes, either to heal, to bless, to leave marks of 
beauty ; or to wound, to hurt, to poison, to 
stain other lives. 

We are forever either adding to the world's 
health, happiness, and good, or to its pain, sor- 
row, and curse. Every moment's true living, 
every victory we win over self or sin, every 
fragment of sweet life we live, makes it easier 
for others to be brave and true and sweet. 
We are always giving out influence. 

" Where'er a noble deed is wrought, 
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought, 
Our hearts in glad surprise 
To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls 
Into our inmost being rolls, 

And lifts us unawares 

Out of all meaner cares." 

Thus it is that companionship always leaves 
its impress. Eye cannot even look into eye, in 
one deep, earnest gaze, but a touch has been 



248 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

left on the soul. An artist of distinguished 
rank would not permit himself to look at any 
but good pictures. He said the mere seeing of 
inferior paintings hurt the tone of his own 
conceptions. If this be true, how we should 
guard our hearts and minds against the receiv- 
ing of any impression that is not refining and 
elevating. The reading of a book that is un- 
worthy, the indulgence in thoughts or imagina- 
tions that are unwholesome, the admitting into 
the life even for a little time of a companion- 
ship that is not what it should be, cannot but 
lower the tone of the life. 

A man well past middle life said, that in 
sensitive youth another young man drew him 
aside and furtively showed him a vile picture. 
He looked at it just for one moment and then 
turned away. But a spot had been burned 
upon his soul. The memory of that glance he 
had never been able to wash out. It had come 
back to him along all the forty years he had 
lived since, even breaking in upon him in his 
most sacred moments, and staining his most 
hallowed thoughts. We do not know what we 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP. 249 

are taking into our life when we admit into 
companionship, even for one hour, one who is not 
good, nor pure, nor true. Then, who can esti- 
mate the debasing influence of such companion- 
ship when continued until it becomes intimacy, 
friendship ; when confidences are exchanged, 
when soul touches soul, when life flows into 
and blends with life ? 

When one awakes to the consciousness of 
the fact that he has formed or is forming a 
companionship with another whose influence 
cannot but hurt him and may perhaps destroy 
him, there is only one true thing to do, — it 
must instantly be given up. A rabbit's foot 
was caught in the hunter's steel trap. The 
little creature seemed to know that unless it 
could get free, its life must soon be lost. So 
with a bravery which we cannot but admire, it 
gnawed off its leg with its own teeth, thus set- 
ting itself free, though leaving its foot in the 
trap. But who will say that it was not wiser 
thus to escape death, even with the loss of its 
foot, than it would have been to keep the foot 
and die? 



250 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

If any one discovers that he is in the snare 
of evil companionship or friendship, whatever 
it cost him, he should tear himself away from 
it. Better enter into pure, noble, and worthy 
life, with one hand or one foot, or with both 
hands and feet cut away, than to save these 
members and be dragged down to eternal 
death. Young people should beware of the be- 
ginnings of evil companionship. It is like the 
machinery in the mill, which, when it once 
seizes the outermost fringe of one's garments, 
quickly winds in the whole garment and whirls 
the person's body to swift and terrible death. 

But a good and true character has also its in- 
fluence. Good companionship has only bless- 
ings and benediction for a life. There have 
been mere chance meetings just for a moment, 
as when ships speak at sea, and pass each on 
its course, never to meet again, which yet have 
left blessings whose influence shall never perish. 
There was an old legend about the origin of 
the pearl. It was said that a star dropped out 
of the sky into the sea, and being folded in a 
shell, became a pearl. 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP, 25 1 

" There was a star 
Which out of the height of heaven fell, 

And was lost, ah me ! 
The beautiful star fell into the sea, 
And falling, was folded into a shell ; 
And the beautiful star became a pearl 

In the sea." 

So it is with the influence of good lives. 
Words, thoughts, songs, kindly deeds, the power 
of example, the inspiration of noble things, drop 
out of the heaven of pure friendship into the 
depths of the heart, and, falling, are folded there 
and become beautiful gems and holy adornments 

in the life. 

* ' There was a smile 
Which out of her eyes 1 blue heaven fell 

As the sunbeams dart. 
The beautiful smile fell into my heart, 
And, falling, was folded in love's sweet shell, 
And the beautiful smile became a song 

In my heart." 

Even brief moments of worthy companion- 
ship leave their mark of blessing. Then, who 
can tell the power of a close and long-continued 
friendship, running through many happy years, 
sharing the deepest experiences, heart and heart 



252 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

knit together, life and life woven as it were into 
one web ? There is a little poem by a gentle 
writer which asks, " What is the best a friend 
can be ? " and answers it. A friend is not only 
shelter, comfort, rest, refreshment, a guide, but 
also an atmosphere warm with all kindly inspira- 
tions of pure life which has no taint of death. 

" Our friend is an unconscious part 
Of every true beat of our heart ; 
A strength, a growth, whence we derive 
God's health, that keeps the world alive. 
Can friend lose friend ? Believe it not. 
The tissue whereof life is wrought, 
Weaving the separate into one, 
Nor end hath, nor beginning ; spun 
From subtle threads of destiny, 
Finer than thought of man can see. 
God takes not back his gifts divine ; 
While thy soul lives, thy friend is thine." 

This is not sentimental exaggeration. Life 
indeed flows into life in true sympathetic union, 
and the two blend as the fragrance of the flowers 
blends with the air into which it is diffused. 
And ever after, each life carries something of 
the other in its very fibre and tissue, something 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP. 253 

ineradicable. No one of us is ever altogether 
the same again when we have had a friend or 
even an intimate companion for a time. 

" What entered into thee, 
That was, is, and shall be." 

Our friends are also our ideals. At least in 
every beautiful friend's life we see some little 
glimpse of life "as it is in heaven," a little 
fragment of the beauty of the Lord, which be- 
comes part of the glory into which we should 
fashion our life. When we truly love a friend 
we unconsciously reach toward what he is and 
grow into or toward his likeness. Thus a father 
and mother are ideals to their child who copies 
their life, their speech, their faults as well as 
their virtues. The same is true in all friend- 
ships and close companionships. If these be 
not good, the influence can be only hurtful and 
evil. 

There is a wonderful restraining and constrain- 
ing power over us in the life of one we love. 
We dare not do wrong in the sacred presence 
of a pure, gentle friend. Every one knows how 



254 THE EVERY- DAY OF LIFE. 

unworthy he feels when he comes, with the con- 
sciousness and recollection of some sin or some 
meanness, into the companionship of one he 
honors as a friend. It is a kind of " Jesus- 
presence" that our friend is to us, in which 
we dare not do evil things. Thus one writes 
of the hallowing influence of a friend's pure 
presence : — 

" Each soul whispers to herself: 'Twere like a breach 
Of reverence in a temple, could I dare 
Here speak untruth, here wrong my inmost thought. 
Here I grow strong and pure ; here I may yield 
Without shamefacedness the little brought 
From out my poorer life, and stand revealed 
And glad, and trusting, and in the sweet and rare 
And tender presence which hath filled the air." 

George Eliot, too, puts a like thought thus : 
" There are natures in which, if they love us, 
we are conscious of having a sort of baptism 
and consecration. They bind us over to recti- 
tude and purity by their pure belief about us ; 
and our sins become the worst kind of sacrilege 
which tears down the invisible altar of trust." 
Another says, "A friend has many functions. 
He comes as the brightener into our life, to 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP. 255 

double our joys and halve our griefs. He comes 
as the counsellor, to give a wisdom to our plans. 
He comes as the strengthened to multiply our 
opportunities and be hands and feet for us in 
our absence. But above all use like this he 
comes as our rebuker, to explain our failures 
and shame us from our lowness ; as our purifier, 
our uplifter, our ideal, whose life to us is a con- 
stant challenge in our heart — ' Friend, come up 
higher, higher along with me ; that you and I 
may be those truest true lovers who are nearest 
to God when nearest to each other.' " 

Even when they leave us in death the influ- 
ence of our friends and companions abides upon 
us, like an afterglow when day is done. The 
memory of their purity is a gentle restraint 
upon us when we would sin. Many a mother is 
more to her children when she is in heaven than 
she was when with them on the earth. Whether 
they ever see us — those sainted ones in glory 
— we know not, but there is an influence 
ever in the sacred thought of them above 
us which inspires us to noble things. One 
exhorts: — 



256 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

" Whether near or far, 
On earth or in yon star, 

Their dwelling be, 
So live that naught of dread 
Would make us bow the head 
Should we be told, ' The dead 

Can all things see.' " 

Thus the influence of companionship projects 
even far beyond the earthly story of those who 
touch and impress our lives. Indeed, we can 
never get away from it, and can never be as 
though we had not experienced it. 

If these things are true — and no one can 
doubt their truth — this matter of companionship 
is one of vital importance. Especially is it im- 
portant for young people to give most watchful 
thought and care to the choosing of their associ- 
ates and friends. Of course, they cannot choose 
those with whom they shall mingle in a general 
way, at school, or in work or business. One is 
compelled ofttimes to sit or stand day after day 
beside those who are not good or worthy. 

The law of Christian love requires that in all 
such cases the utmost courtesy and kindness 
shall be shown. But this may be done and the 



THE INFLUENCE OF COMPANIONSHIP. 2$>J 

heart not be opened to real companionship. It 
is companionship that leaves its mark on the 
life, that is, the entering into relations in which 
the spirits blend. Jesus himself showed love to 
all men, but he took into companionship only 
a few chosen ones. We are to be like him, 
seeking to be a blessing to all, but receiving 
into personal relations of affection and confi- 
dence only those who are worthy and whose 
lives will help in the upbuilding of our own 
life. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

" AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." 

" Like a snowy mountain peak above us, 
' Be ye perfect ' dazzles our dim eyes. 
Canst thou look from thy pure height and love us ? 

May our earth-clogged feet to thee arise ? 
We before the vision veil our faces, 

Yet would have it not a ray less bright ; 
Shine into our sin's dark hiding places, 

Flood our lives with thy transfiguring light." 

Lucy Larcom % 

• "As it is in heaven " is the standard of the 
doing of God's will on earth which the Lord's 
Prayer sets for us. It is a high ideal, and yet 
there can be no lower. The petition is a prayer 
that heaven may begin in our hearts right here 
on the earth. Indeed, it must begin in us here 
or it will never begin at all for us. None can 
ever enter heaven save those into whom heaven 
has first entered. Heaven only can be wings 
to lift us to heaven. "The kingdom of heaven 

258 



"AS IT IS IN HEAVEN." 259 

is within you," was the Master's own word. 
Every one goes at last "to his own place/' the 
place for which his character fits him. There 
can be no heaven for men of unheavenly mind. 
It is time we had right views upon this subject. 
We must have the life of God in us before we 
are ready to dwell in blessedness with God. 

A gentle author has recently said, "We are 
too much in the habit of looking forward to 
heaven as something that will be an easier, 
pleasanter story for us to read when we have 
finished this tiresome earth-narrative ; a luxuri- 
ous palace-chamber to rest in after this life's 
drudgery is ended ; a remote celestial moun- 
tain-retreat, where the sound of the restless 
waves of humanity forever fretting these shores 
will vex our ears no longer." We forget that 
heaven is not far off yonder, — at least our 
heaven is not, — but begins right here in our com- 
mon days, if it is ever to begin at all for us. Is 
not that what the prayer means — " Thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven " ? " On 
earth" — in our shops and stores and schools; 
in our homes and social life ; in our drudgery 



260 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

and care ; in our times of temptation and sor- 
row. It is not a prayer to be taken away out of 
this world into heaven, to begin there the doing 
of God's will ; it is a prayer that right here on 
the earth and now we may learn to live as they 
do in heaven. 

When we think a little of the true mission of 
Christian lives in this world, — to make at least 
one spot of it better, changing briers to roses, 
darkness to light, hate to love, we see how 
important it is that our prayer be not, " Lord, 
take me home out of all this sorrow and sin ; " 
but, " Lord, let me stay here longer and do thy 
will and bless a corner of earth." Well does 
Susan Coolidge sing, — 

" When I sit and think of heaven so beautiful and dear, 
Think of the sweet peace reigning there and the con- 
tentions here, 
Think of the safe, sure justice beside the earthly wrong, 
And set our ringing discords against celestial song, 
And all the full securities beside ' O Lord, how long?' 
Oh, then I long to be there, and in my heart I pray, 
< Lord, open thou the pearly gates, and let me in to-day.' 

And then I turn to earth again, and in my thoughts I see 
The small, unnoted corner given in charge to me, 



"as it is in heaven:' 26 r 

The work that needs be done there which no one else 
will do, 

The briers that rend, the tares that spring, the heart- 
ease choked with rue, 

The plants that must be trained and set to catch the 
sun and dew ; 

And there seems so much to do there, that in my heart 
I pray, 

1 Lord, shut thy gate, and call me not, and let me work 
to-day.' " 

How do they live in heaven ? What is that 
sweet, beautiful life into whose spirit we ask 
now to be introduced and ultimately to be 
altogether transformed ? There all wills are in 
perfect accord with the divine will. We begin 
our Christian life on earth with hearts and wills 
estranged from God, indisposed to obey him. 
Naturally we want to take our own way, not 
God's. The beginning of the new life is the 
acceptance of God as our King. But not at 
once does the kingdom in us become fully his. 
It has to be subdued, and the conquest is slow. 
Christian growth is simply the bringing of our 
wills into perfect accord with God's. It is 
learning to do always the things that please 



262 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

God. Tennyson puts this truth in striking 
way in two lines of " In Memoriam : " — 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how — 
Our wills are ours to make them thine." 

" Our wills are ours." This is the profound 
truth of human sovereignty. God made us in 
his own image, made us free to do as we will. 
Even God himself cannot compel our will. 
" Our wills are ours." Their freedom is invio- 
lable. But this is only half the truth. 

" Our wills are ours to make them thine." 

They are ours to give to God, to yield to his 
will. The giving must be our act, must be vol- 
untary. Yet until we make this surrender, 
we have not begun to live the Christian life, 
nor have we begun to grow into that ideal holi- 
ness which is heaven's common life. We begin 
making our wills God's when we first begin 
to follow Christ. But it takes all life to make 
the surrender complete. Taught of God and 
helped by the divine Spirit, we come every day, 
if we are faithful, a little nearer doing God's 
will on earth as it is done in heaven. 



"AS IT IS IN heaven:' 263 

"Thy will be done." That means obedience, 
not partial, but full and complete. It is taking 
the word of God into our heart and conforming 
our whole life to it. It is accepting God's way 
always, cheerfully, quietly, with love and faith. 
This is not easy. Our natures do not incline 
us to do God's will. We like to have our own 
way. To obey God is ofttimes to take up a 
cross. Much of the doing of God's will is 
passive — letting the divine will be done in us. 
Sometimes this is like driving a ploughshare 
through our life's fair garden. It cuts into our 
plans and destroys our cherished expectations. 
Still, whatever this will may require, whatever 
it may crush, we know it is ever preparing us 
for the heavenly life. 

In the wasting of the marble under the chisel 
the image grows more and more into the beauty 
of the sculptor's thought. When God's will 
cuts away our cherished things we know it is 
well, and that we are being fashioned into the 
beauty of the divine thought for us. 

What is the heavenly pattern after which 
our lives are to be fashioned ? Can we know 



264 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

what we are to be ? We get the answer in 
what God has given us as the rule for our life — 
his law. The divine law is summed up in one 
word — love. "Thou shalt love." God is love. 
"As it is in heaven " means love wrought out 
in all pure, beautiful, holy life. " Thy will be 
done on earth" means therefore love in all 
earthly life. All the lessons may be gathered 
into one — learning to love. Loving God is 
first. Then loving God begets in us love to all 
men; for, as George MacDonald says, "When 
God comes to man, man looks round for his 
neighbor." We cannot have the love of God in 
our heart and not love our fellow-men. 

If, then, we know what love really is, we can 
readily find our pattern for life "as it is in 
heaven." What is love? We have a portrait of 
it in St. Paul's wonderful thirteenth of First Co- 
rinthians. " Love suff ereth long and is kind ; 
love envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, is 
not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh 
not account of evil ; rejoiceth not in unright- 
eousness, but rejoiceth in the truth ; beareth all 



"AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.* 265 

things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
endureth all things. Love never faileth; but 
whether there be prophecies, they shall be done 
away ; whether there be tongues, they shall 
cease ; whether there be knowledge, it shall be 
done away." Then we see the perfect incar- 
nation of this vision of love in our blessed 
Lord's human life, as portrayed for us in 
the Gospels. "As it is in heaven" is like 
Christ. 

But what is the love that is the whole of the 
will of God ? Do we really understand it ? 
Do not many of us think only of its earthly side ? 
We like to be loved, that is, to have other 
people love us and live for us and do things for 
us. We like the gratifications of love. But 
that is only miserable selfishness, if it goes no 
further. It is a desecration of the sacred name 
to think that love, at its heart, means getting, 
receiving. Nay, love gives. Getting is earthly ; 
"as it is in heaven" is giving. That is what 
God's love does — it finds its blessedness in giv- 
ing. " God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son." That is what Christ's 



266 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

love did — it poured out its very life-blood to 
the last drop. The essential meaning of loving 
must always be giving, not receiving. 

Perhaps our thought of the heavenly blessed- 
ness is often a selfish one, that it will be all 
enjoyment, all receiving. But even heaven 
will not be an eternity of self-gratification, of 
the bliss of receiving. Even there, especially 
there, where all imperfections will be left be- 
hind, love must find its supreme blessedness in 
giving, in serving others, in pouring out into 
other lives. It will forever there be more 
blessed to give than to receive, to minister 
rather than to be ministered unto. 

" On earth as it is in heaven " means there- 
fore not merely the gratification of being loved, 
but the blessedness of loving others and giving 
out the richest and best of one's life for others. 
Sometimes we hear people sighing to have 
friends, to be loved. This is natural. We all 
hunger for love. But this craving may become 
unwholesome, even miserably morbid. As one 
writes, " It may be only a covetous outreach 
after a blessing which belongs to another, and 



" AS IT IS IN HE A VEN." 267 

without which that other life must be left 
wholly unsunned and unrefreshed." A great 
deal more wholesome desire is the craving to 
give love, to be a blessing to others, to pour 
out the heart's sweet life to refresh other 
weary hearts. 

It is God's will that we should love ; it may 
not always be God's will that we should be 
loved. It seems to be the mission of some in 
this world to give and not to receive. They 
are set to shine in the darkness, burning up 
their own life as the lamp's oil burns, to be 
light to other souls, while no one gives light to 
them. They are called to serve, to minister, to 
wear out their life in giving sweetness, comfort, 
and help to others, while none come to minister 
to them, to pour love's sweetness into their 
hearts, and to give them daily bread of affec- 
tion, cheer, and help. In many homes we find 
such lives — a patient wife and mother, or a 
gentle, unselfish sister — blessing, caring for, 
serving, giving perpetually love's richest gifts, 
herself meanwhile unloved, unserved, unrecog- 
nized, and unhelped. 



268 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We are apt to pity such persons ; but may it 
not be that they are nearer the heavenly ideal 
of doing God's will than are some of those who 
sit in the bright sunshine of love, receiving, 
ministered unto, but not giving or serving. 
Was it not thus with our Lord himself? He 
loved and gave and blessed many, at last giv- 
ing his very life, but few came to give him 
blessing and sweetness of love in his own soul. 
It is more divine to love than to be loved. At 
least God's will for us is that we should love, 
pouring out our heart's richest treasures upon 
others, not asking meanwhile for any return. 
Loving is its own best return and reward. 

" This is life — to pour out love unstinted, 
Good and evil, sunlike, blesseth he ; 
Through your finite is his infinite hinted — 
Children of your Father must ye be." 

Thus " as it is in heaven " shines ever before 
us as the ideal of our earthly life. It is not a 
vague, shadowy ideal, for it is simply the com- 
plete doing of God's will. Perfect obedience is 
heaven. Sometimes it is serving others, some- 



"AS IT IS IN heavens 269 

times it is quiet, patient suffering, or passive 
waiting. The one great lesson to be learned is, 
perfect accord with the will of God for us every 
moment, whatever that will may be. 

" Father, I do not ask 
That thou wouldst choose some other task, 
And make it mine. I pray 
But this ; let every day 
Be moulded still 
By thine own hand ; my will 
Be only thine, however deep 
I have to bend, my hand to keep. 
Let me not simply do, but be content, 
Sure that the little crosses each are sent, 
And no mistake can ever be 
With thine own hand to choose for me." 

" As it is in heaven " may seem far above us 
to-day. The song is too sweet for our unmusi- 
cal voice to sing. The life is too beautiful for 
us, with our imperfect, inharmonious nature, to 
live. But if only we are true to our Christian 
faith ; if only we strive ever to do our Father's 
will ; if only we keep our heart ever open to 
the love of Christ and to the help and sanctify- 
ing influence of the Holy Spirit, we shall rise 



270 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

day by day toward heaven's perfectness, until at 
last we shall enter the pearl gates and be with 
Christ and be like him. For the present our 
striving and our prayer should ever be : " Thy 
will be done on earth, in us, as it is done in 
heaven." 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 

a Who's seen my day ? 
'Tis gone away, 
Nor left a trace 
In any place. 
If I could only find 
Its foot-fall in some mind, 
Some spirit-waters stirred 
By wand of deed or word, 
I should not stand at shadowy eve 
And for my day so grieve and grieve.' ' 

From " Rest, The Tranquil HourP 

There is always a sacredness about last ' 
things. We remember the last things in the 
life of a loved friend who is gone, — the last 
walk we had together, the last talk, the last 
letter our friend wrote to us, the last book 
he was reading, with the mark at the place 
where he left off, the last piece of work the 
gentle hands did, the last words the dear lips 
spoke. 

271 



2J2 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We are ever coming to last things, things we 
shall never meet again. Now it is the last hour 
of our day, the day which came to us new and 
clean in the morning, which we have spent well 
or ill, and which, however we have spent it, we 
cannot live over again. Now it is the last hour 
of a year which came to us with its thousand 
tasks and hopes and opportunities. Now it is 
the last hour of a life. The doctor says you can 
live but a little while, and if there are any matters 
you ought to attend to, you would better not 
put them off any longer. 

But it is not death only that ends things. 
Each period of life has its closing which is as 
final and irrevocable in its place as death in its 
place. Childhood has its last hour. Childhood 
is the great sowing-time of life. Seed should then 
be sown in the tender soil, seeds that will grow 
up into beautiful things in the after years. 
This is the parents' opportunity. While it lasts 
love should be alert to pour into the young mind 
and heart the germs of all true and beautiful 
things. It is also the child's opportunity. A 
wasted childhood is apt to mean a marred, if 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 2/3 

not a maimed, manhood or womanhood. There 
are things that can be gotten into the life only 
in childhood ; not to get these lessons, or quali- 
ties, or impulses, or tendencies, into mind and 
heart in the bright, sunny days, is to go through 
all the after years without them. Childhood 
has its last hour ; then the veil drops and we 
are done forever with that period of life. It 
never will come again to us. 

Then, in turn, youth has its last hour. Youth 
is wonderful in its opportunities and possibili- 
ties. It is the time for training and storing the 
mind, the time for the forming of habits, the 
time for the selection of friends, the time for 
the choosing of a calling, the time for the shap- 
ing of character. There are things that can be 
gathered into life only in this period. Few of 
us have any adequate conception of the crip- 
pling of lives, the marring of characters, the 
spoiling of careers, the poverty of the results of 
toil along the after years, the failure of splendid 
hopes and possibilities, because of the misim- 
provement of youth. 

There are thousands of men who struggle help- 



274 THE % VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

lessly and hopelessly with the responsibilities and 
duties of places they were meant to fill, but which 
they cannot fill because they made no preparation 
for them in the days when preparation was their 
only duty. There are countless women in homes, 
with the cares and tasks of households now upon 
their hands, failing in their lot, and making only 
unhappiness and confusion where they ought to 
have made happiness and beauty, because in 
their youth they did not learn to do the common 
things on which in home-making so much de- 
pends. When the last hour of youth is gone, 
with its opportunities for preparation neglected 
and unimproved, there is nothing that can be 
done to repair the harm. " Some things God 
gives often. The seasons return again and 
again, and the flowers change with the months ; 
but youth comes twice to none." 

Thus each period of life has its own closing, 
its last hour, in which its work is ended, whether 
well done or neglected. Indeed, we may say the 
same of each day ; its end is the closing of a 
definite season through which we can never 
pass again. We may think of each single day 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 2? $ 

as a miniature life. It comes to us new ; it 
goes from us finished. There are three hundred 
and sixty-five days in a year. The only way to 
have a well-finished year is to finish the tasks 
and duties of each day as it passes. A marred 
or a lost day anywhere along the years may lead 
to loss or even sore misfortune afterward. 

A student missed learning but one single les- 
son. At the end of the year the principal prob- 
lem given to him in the examination fell in the 
lesson he had missed, and he failed in it. Then 
a hundred times in after years did he stumble 
and make mistakes in problems and calculations, 
because he had lost that particular day's lesson. 
Thus failure in any duty, any day, may fling its 
shadow to the close of life. 

We are thus ever in last hours, because no 
hour is without its importance in its relation to 
other hours, and because no hour comes twice 
to us. Every hour is a last hour because we can 
never live it a second time. Then it is true, too, 
that any day or hour may really be our last. We 
are never sure of any to-morrow. One of the 
best measures and standards of living is to live 



276 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

each day as if it were the last we should live. 
Supposing that one morning we were told that 
we should have but the one day now before us : 
how would we pass the day ? Would we not be 
very careful not to grieve God ? Would we not 
be faihtful in all duty and all tasks, that nothing 
should be left undone, nothing unfinished, when 
the day closed ? Would we not bear ourselves 
very lovingly and gently toward all about us, 
that the last day's memories might be kindly, 
without bitterness, or anything to cause regret ? 

" We should fill the hours with the sweetest things 

If we had but a day ; 
We should drink alone at the purest springs 

In our upward way ; 
We should love with a life-time's love in an hour, 

If the hours are few ; 
We should rest, not for dreams, but for fresher power 

To be and to do. 

We should guard our wayward or wearied wills 

By the clearest light ; 
We should keep our eyes on the heavenly hills 

If they lay in sight ; 
We should trample the pride and the discontent 

Beneath our feet ; 
We should take whatever a good God sent 

With a trust complete. 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 2JJ 

We should waste no moment in weak regret 

If the day were but one, 
If what we remember and what we forget 

Went out with the sun. 
We should be from our clamorous selves set free 

To work or to pray, 
And to be what the Father would have us to be, 

If we had but a day." 

If we knew that this present day were our 
very last, we should certainly strive to make it 
a most beautiful day. We should fill it with 
all loving service and gentle ministries. We 
should not mar it with selfishness and ugly 
tempers. We should awake every energy of 
our being to its best power, and should work 
with all our might. We should not have one 
moment to spare for discontent, for idle dream- 
ing, for complaint or murmuring, for pride, for 
regret; we should crowd the day to its last 
moment with love's fidelities and duties. 

Since any day may really be our last, we 
should live continually as if it were the last. 
We should make each day that God gives us 
beautiful enough to be the end of life. How 
may we do this ? 



278 THE EVERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

We should keep all our work completed as 
we go on. This applies to our business and all 
our routine task-work. The week-day side of 
our life has a great deal more to do with our 
spiritual life, with the building of our charac- 
ter, with our growth in grace, than many of 
us think. Some people seem to imagine that 
there is no moral or spiritual quality whatever 
in life's common task-work. On the other 
hand, no day can be made beautiful whose 
secular side is not as full and complete as its 
religious side. If we have read our Bible, and 
said our prayers, and observed the command- 
ments, and been reverent toward God and 
loving toward our neighbor all the day, and yet 
have been indolent or negligent in our busi- 
ness, letting things run behind, putting off 
important duties till to-morrow, not paying 
debts that fell due, not keeping engagements 
or promises, leaving affairs tangled and in con- 
fusion, at the going down of the sun, we can- 
not call our day's work well done. 

Therefore, to be beautiful enough for the 
last day of life, each day must see all its work 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 2/9 

done with painstaking carefulness and fidelity. 
Nothing must be left undone. No piece of 
work must be slighted or done in a slovenly 
way. No duty which belonged in the day must 
be postponed. Especially should all matters 
of business affecting or involving others be 
attended to, so that if we never come again to 
our desk there shall be no confusion, no en- 
tanglement, no hurt done to any one. Men 
have died suddenly, and their affairs have been 
left in such shape that they never could be 
straightened out. Others with large plans for 
philanthropic bequests have deferred the writ- 
ing of their will until death snatched them 
away, leaving all their liberal intentions to fail 
through their own negligence. There should 
never be an hour in any man's life when instant 
dying would leave any of his matters in confu- 
sion, or in a shape which would cause litigation 
or controversy after he is gone, or so that his 
matured purposes concerning the distribution 
of his property shall come to naught. We 
should finish each day's work and close its 
business affairs as carefully and conscientiously 
as if we knew it to be our last day. 



280 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

The same rule should be observed in all 
our relations with others. Long ago St. Paul 
taught that we should never let the sun go 
down upon our wrath. If frictions occur in 
our busy days, and strifes mar the pleasure of 
our intercourse with neighbors or friends, we 
must make sure — he said — that before the 
setting of the sun all bitterness shall pass out 
of our heart, as we pray, " Forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive them that trespass 
against us." This is a lesson we would do well 
to carry into practice with very literal applica- 
tion. No resentment should ever be allowed 
to live in our heart over night. Every feeling 
of bitterness, of anger, of malice, of envy or 
jealousy, that the day may have aroused in our 
breast, should be put away before the last hour 
passes. If we have injured another by word or 
act, we should hasten before we sleep to make 
amends and seek the restoration of the peace 
of love which we have broken. If we have 
omitted any duty of kindness, any ministry of 
affection, which we ought to have rendered, 
we should hasten to do, even so tardily, the 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 28 1 

neglected service, before the day altogether 
closes. 

We should never lay our head on the pillow 
while any of the day's duties of love remain not 
done. We should never sleep with any friend's 
heart carrying hurt from us which we have not 
sought to heal with love. We should never let 
a day end with record of duty to one of the least 
of Christ's little one's neglected. God hears 
the cries of his children, and knows of their suf- 
ferings and their tears, when the help or the 
comfort they needed came not. We should 
never disappoint God when he expects us to be 
his messengers to his children in their pain or 
want. 

No day should ever be allowed to close over 
us with its ministry of love unfulfilled, and its 
sins against love unatoned and unforgiven. We 
may never have another day in which to set 
things right that have gone wrong in this, to 
do the duties omitted, to show the kindnesses 
neglected, to unsay the angry or bitter words 
spoken, to undo the unloving things done. We 
should take heed, therefore, that the close of 



282 THE E VERY-DAY OF LIFE. 

each day shall leave all our relations with others 
so true, so right, so loving, that if that day- 
should prove to be our last all shall be well. 

So it should be also with our relation to God 
and to our own eternal future. We should let 
no day end for us without being at peace, our 
sins forgiven, our duty well done up to that 
hour. We do not know, when we lay ourselves 
down to rest any night, that we shall have 
another morning in this world. Therefore we 
should leave nothing uncertain as to our own 
awakening if it should be in the presence of 
God. Preparation for death is simply life's 
work well done up to the moment. 

We need only, therefore, to make each day 
complete and beautiful with the completeness 
and beauty of fulfilled duty. There will always 
be sins and faults and mistakes in even the best 
day's record ; but if we have been truly faithful, 
doing what we could, God will receive our work, 
blotting out its stains, filling np its defects, and 
correcting its faults. At the close of such a 
day we can breathe the beautiful evening prayer 
of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps : — 



THE ENDING OF THE DAY. 283 

" Take unto thyself, Father! 

This folded day of thine, 
This weary way of mine ; 
Its ragged corners cut me yet, 
Oh, still the jar and fret ! 
Father, do not forget 
That I am tired 
With this day of thine. 

Breathe thy pure breath, watching Father, 
On this marred day of thine, 
This wandering day of mine ; 
Be patient with its blur and blot, 
Wash it white of stain and spot, 
Reproachful eyes ! remember not 
That I have grieved thee, 
On this day of thine." 



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